‘A Sense of Unity’: New Canaan High School Senior, ABC Student Rajon Mitchell Reflects on His Experience

New Canaan High School senior Rajon Mitchell recalls his freshman-year self as a “much quieter, shyer version” of the young man he is today. An ABC House of New Canaan student from a tough neighborhood in the Bronx, N.Y., Mitchell had distinguished himself as a student in the city by leaning into his instincts as an introvert, keeping to himself and going his own way. “While that’s nice and that brought me success before, in my time prior to coming to New Canaan, having the ability and having the skills to connect with others, make relationships, it’s just so much better,” a smiling Mitchell said on a recent afternoon standing outside Town Hall, where he’s interning during his final month as an NCHS student in the Inland Wetlands Department. “And being able to have a team to go further and quicker.”

They’re life lessons that Mitchell—an organizer for an ABC fundraising car wash to be held 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday at Saxe Middle School—will take to Northeastern University in Boston this fall. Bright, authentic, naturally curious and engaging, Mitchell in four years as a New Canaan student not only has come into his own as a person, according to those who have tracked his progress here, but also intellectually, feeding a genuine thirst for new ideas and experiences.