Photos: Oracle Team Clean Up At East End
Members of Oracle Team USA — the America’s Cup defending champions — spent today helping to clean up East End Primary school saying they “really feel like this is our home” so when they have a chance get out in the community and help out, they want to take it.
Education Minister Wayne Scott said, “It’s just amazing, you know one of the things that we’ve got to do more of is community involvement and this building is in need of a lot of work and the Principal has been looking to turn it into a music and art center, which we fully support.
“I would encourage other community groups to come out and help us work in our schools in our communities, because after all, this is one Bermuda and we’re all in this together.”
East End Principal Julie Foggo said, “Today we had the privilege of having Team Oracle of the America’s Cup come down and provide some support.
“I watched the building just sit there and I worried about it becoming derelict. So I had quite a few conversations with staff, a few ideas going through my mind as to how we might use it.
“I reached out to the Ministry of Education and the facilities manager just to find out what we could do as a school to bring that building to a place where we could use it.”
“So, after countless emails and countless conversations and dialogue, we decided to go ahead and start cleaning it up. I had some friends and family that would going to come and help me, and I was looking to use this space for our arts department, mainly our music department,” added Ms Foggo.
“We have quite a few instruments that do not get utilized because we do not have the space. We have a music teacher who shares his room with the health teacher, as well as the arts teacher.
“So it becomes very challenging to provide good instruction for both the arts classes and the music, in terms of them having to share that space.
“Team Oracle reached out to the Ministry of Education looking for a possible project within education that they could do, and we must thank the Ministry of Education greatly for putting forth East End Primary’s name for this exact project.
“They put our name forward and within a week, we had it all organized and today they showed up at 10.00am and they have been working tirelessly for East End Primary, for our students, and for our music department. and for that I just want to say thank you so much Team Oracle.”
Oracle Team USA’s communications director Peter Rusch said, “We had an opportunity to come in and help out at one of the schools, East End Primary. So we thought, it’s a slow week for us, at least a slow couple of days with no wind, so we got some guys around and we thought we would come down and help up.
“It’s a pretty big transition in a few hours, but we got a pretty big crew, our guys having a pretty good work rate, so they can accomplish a lot in a short amount of time.
“We understood this building has been donated to this school and they are going to move their music program in here. I know some of the guys, we have a little band on team, so a lot of music is pretty near and dear to heart of some of the guys, so it’s a great chance to come out and hopefully help out the school and help out these kids.
“We’ve been here for over a year now, Oracle Team USA. We really feel like this is our home, and hopefully Bermuda feels the same way. We want to be the home team here and so any time we have a chance to sort and get out to the community and help out we want to jump on it and take it.
“Our first priority is to win the America’s Cup, so training comes first but when we have a chance, we like to come out and do it and this seem like a perfect fit.”
Careful Oracle, don’t let the Dept. of Immigration read that statement. They’ll delay your applications real quick unless of course you have some $$$ to spend here.
Thanks for the help guys! Thanks for choosing Bermuda! Make yourself at home as long as you wish.
Let’s go Team Oracle
Great job! Those Oracle folks can really handle the work, our politicians, straight posers.
Great effort Oracle! I am cheering for you. Come again!
OMG. THANK YOU. Thank you for all that you have done and thank you for all that you are doing. Most of Bermuda is incredibly grateful.
Kindest regards.
It’s a shame these guys don’t have a pathway to status…
Why would they want it?
Well done, well done….it would be also good to know that they can give some talks and share life skills with our prison population at the east end of the Island, i.e. the Co-Ed, with-out the press.
3 Ministers for the photo op??? Then again Cabinet meeting was in St. George’s today. Coincidence?
Thanks to team Oracle.. a job well done. It takes a village to raise a child and to maintain our schools.
another example of ‘giving back’. I’m humbled that these so called foreigners do everything from neighborhood beautification and beach cleanups to diving up marine trash. and guess who creates the mess they clean up? But then listen to the talk shows and…..