Taking the phrase “love thy neighbor” to heart, several New Canaan residents have volunteered significant time, money and effort to help fund Norwalk’s Carver Center, one of the area’s most important community organizations.
“We are now in all four middle schools in Norwalk,” New Canaan resident and ex officio Carver board member Janine Smith told NewCanaanite.com. “We have over 800 kids a day come in for SAT prep, college tours, robotics that GE sponsors, Neilsen, Xerox…they’re all supporting Carver Community Center. The reason is that kids needs a place to go after school where they can see college and envision it.”
According to Smith, the driving force behind New Canaan’s charitable contributions to Carver is former St. Luke’s headmaster and longtime New Canaan resident Dick Whitcomb.
“About thirty years ago, St. Luke’s started to get volunteers connected to the Carver Community Center,” Smith said. “That’s when Dick Whitcomb became involved. And about a decade ago when he retired he decided to get even more involved because he saw that these afterschool programs were so necessary. He has been instrumental in helping raise money and help with the programs themselves”
New Canaanite Carol Howe became involved with Carver through her association with Whitcomb, as her son Austin is currently a senior at the school. Howe’s previous experience with organizing golf outings made her a natural fit with one of Carver’s biggest and newest fundraising events, the Golf Classic which will be held Monday, September 21st at the Country Club of Fairfield.
“Dick had asked me for a few years to get involved,” Howe said. “He wanted me to help and I felt it was a good time in my life to take some time and do whatever little things I could do to help.”
“We feel confident that most New Canaan kids will have productive futures,” Smith said. “It’s a lot more incumbent upon us as New Canaanites to help Norwalk, which has so much potential.”