I would like to thank all of you who participated in our first charity weekend. The tournament as always, was a great event for our students. We had some impressive performances, and so many students facing adversity with courage.

Congratulations to our many event winners listed below.
Balance Challenge: Lily Elinghaus, Emilie Kelly, Sabrina Lopez, PJ Krestinski, Quinn Daly, Gracia Acheson

Continuous Point Sparring: Marcus Boigris, Nick Clausen, Lea Carideo

Forms: Aleksei Coss, Patrick Mooney, Timmy Brisson

Kicking Sprints: Donnie Hoeltge, Joseph Lopez, Jacoby Goodson, Lock McKelvy, Michael Zaccaria, Ariana Rubin, Nikola Morovic

Power Breaking: Alex Fishler, Elliot Tahbaz, Jordan Fishler, Juan Fernandez, Dumyr Decime, Timmy Rogers, Nikola Morovic, Tommy Bender

Prince Pad Pushing: Annika Boigris, Jackie Riordan, Daniel Tahbaz, Sophia Rogers, Sabrina Lopez, PJ Krestinski, Julian Callegari, Sam Levy, Michael Zaccaria, Nikola Morovic, Gracia Acheson, Nick Clausen

Punching Sprints: Ella Mingione, Jackie Riordan, William D’Ambrosio, Sabrina Lopez, Jacoby Goodson, Andrew Clausen, Sam Levy, Aidan Johnston, Amanda Morel

Following the tournament, we had a tremendous time at the first school kick-a-thon. Together we raised over $7,000 for the Wounded Warrior Project while doing
71,000 kicks.

The day started off strong when we had all of our kids in our first group perform the maximum 400 kicks. Even our youngest kickers, Willem Bender and Matthew
Angelo, pushed through to the end to help raise money for the charity.

In our next group, Aiden Johnston showed that 600 front kicks was just too easy. He did the first 200+ kicks as spinning hook kicks on his way to doing the maximum for
his group of 600.

Not to be outdone, Gracia Acheson did one of the most amazing things I have seen as a martial artist. While pushing herself to do the full 2,000 kicks in her group, she kept pace doing a spinning hook kick-roundhouse kick combination. Meaning over the span of 40 minutes, she spun completely around 1,000 times without ever stopping.

Along the way, students, family, and teachers were amazed to see just what they could do to make a difference in the world. No matter how large or small your contributions, you all should be proud of doing your own small part.