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Meet Destination Imagination Team "Heifer Helpers"

By Stephanie Kane, News Producer

Team Heifer Helpers is a group of seven Hopkinton 5th graders who will be participating in Destination Imagination (DI) on March 31st. DI is a worldwide tournament where elementary school through college age students compete in a variety of challenges that require creative problem solving skills and teamwork. Behind every team, there is a parent volunteer that acts as the team manager. Linda Holly, who is also the coordinator for Hopkinton's DI program, serves as this team's manager, but iss only allowed to help on a peripheral level.

Teams start preparing for the competition in October by first picking out one ofseven challenges to complete. This year, the kids decided to take on the project OUTREACH option which involves designing a plan that will help meet a community need. For their community project, the kids chose to help the Heifer International organization.

As part of the DI project requirements, team Heifer Helpers, as they've dubbed themselves, has implemented both marketing and fundraising techniques to help support Heifer International. They will be having a bake sale and a yard sale on Saturday March 3rd and Sunday March 4th at Water Fresh Farm. And for those who cannot attend either of those, the kids created a webpage on the campaign funding website indigogo.com for donations. The kids were also busy at the meeting painting props and writing a script for a skit about Heifer International that they will perform at the competition.

At the competition, the group is assessed by appraisers, who look at how well the group performs in a variety of different categories. Not only does DI assess the group's ability to work collaboratively on a long term project, but it also tests their ability to improvise and to think on the fly through what are known as instance challenges.

To prepare, the team is assigned an instant challenge to complete during a portion of each meeting. During this particular team meeting, using onlytwo chairs that were laid back to back, clay, toothpicks, straws, paper, and a ping pong ball , the kids had six minutes to design the largest structure possible, that allowed the ball to roll as far as possible. The kids were judged on teamwork, creativity, the length of the structure, as well as how far the ball rolled.

If Heifer Helpers does well in the March regional, they will move onto other rounds of competition. This is the team's 4th year together, and they say that each year they have gotten stronger. However, even as seasoned veterans, the team still gets some competition jitters.

Holly believes that this experience gives the kids the opportunity to develop important skills that they will use throughout their lives.

But despite all their hard work in preparing for the competition, the team has fun working together.

Team Heifer Helpers is oone of thirteen Hopkinton teams participating in DI this year. For more information about Destination Imagination in Hopkinton, send an email to Linda Holly at hopdi@verizon.net.

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