Hartford students get loud first-day welcome from Calling All Brothers
Students arriving for the first day of school in Hartford on Tuesday were met with clapping, cheering and a tunnel of community members before they even made it through the doors.
Calling All Brothers returned to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School for its annual first-day-of-school celebration, a tradition the group has continued for 11 years.
Pastor AJ Johnson of Calling All Brothers said the school holds special significance for the organization.
“Yeah. Doctor Martin Luther King School is special. Several years ago, almost about 11 years ago, the school was slated to close and the community came together and said we wanted to keep it open,” Johnson said. “It went from a $60 million investment to $111 million investment of what you see. So we always picked a school, because we always start here because this is a school that has been resilient.”
Johnson said the celebration brings people from across the community together around education.
“To see, you know, black, white, Puerto Rican, Asian, Indian, all come and celebrate under the grant of education is beautiful,” Johnson said.
For Johnson, the goal is to make sure a student’s first steps off the bus and into school are a high point of the day.
“A lot of these kids live in a rough neighborhood. They have to walk through crime. They got to walk through violence. They got to walk through all kinds of things to get here,” Johnson said. “So we wanted to meet them here with with joy.”
That joy was easy to find Tuesday morning.
Zion Moncrieffe was beginning fifth grade and already knew what he wanted to do once he made it inside.
“When I get in that school, I am going to hug my my my old, my, my old teacher!” Zion said.
The celebration is also meant to encourage the parents sending their children back to the classroom.
When NBC Connecticut asked Zion’s mother, Jannea Stone, what she wanted her son to know when he watched the moment back, her message was simple.
“That I love you, and I want you to do great and be successful,” Stone said.
Johnson described the atmosphere created by Calling All Brothers and the community as a “Super Bowl-like environment.”
For the organization, all of the noise, cheering and celebration serves a larger purpose: making sure Hartford students begin their school year knowing their community is behind them.
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