SESSION ONE

The COVID-19 pandemic lockdown had just begun, and four freshmen from The Winsor School in Boston (Beatrix Picotte, Eva Lafond, Sophie Lim, and Yuyuan Huang) were wondering: what’s school going to be like now? Online classes at school were long, boring, and unorganized. Even worse, they noticed that their younger siblings didn’t even have the luxury of having synchronous online classes. Just as the world was unraveling in those early days, education, too, was in peril.

The four students gathered together to come up with a plan for an organization that would provide free, online education for elementary and middle school students, with an optional fundraiser for donations to Massachusetts General Hospital’s COVID-19 relief fund. A few more students joined the mentoring team, and after a few months of careful planning, Creative Classroom was established in March 2020.

The first session of Creative Classroom had around 20 students signed up for various classes in English, math, and history. Parents were eager for the chance to send their children to “class” again, and students appreciated having something to do with their friends. Immediately, donations for MGH started flowing in. Nearly $600 was raised for MGH in the first month of Creative Classroom’s founding.

Creative Classroom was off to a great start!