Tompkins middle school students launch The Meme Event to tackle social issue

The following is a republished press release from a community organization or member and NOT written by the Ithaca Voice … to submit community announcements to The Voice, contact us at jalmendarez@ithacavoice.com.

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The Flaming Fries are a Destination Imagination (DI) team from DeWitt Middle School. In DI, teams work together to solve problems creatively.

Last year was our first year as a team and we made it all the way to Global Finals in Knoxville, TN. This year, we have chosen to do DI’s Service Learning Challenge, The Meme Event.

We met with the Mayor of Ithaca, Svante Myrick, and the Superintendent of the Ithaca City School District, Dr. Luvelle Brown, to identify a problem in our community. The team decided to do a service project to help the community stay active when the weather makes it difficult to exercise outside. We worked with a number of local celebrities to create movement videos and posters to help keep people active. We planned our project for people in schools, businesses, and homes.

We are holding a community event from February 22nd through March 4th and want many people in our community to participate by trying out the online videos. During the event, we will feature new movement videos each day on our web site, theflamingfries.com.

About a week before the event, we will be sharing a meme that we created that features Mayor Myrick and Dr. Brown. Part of our project is trying to make this meme go viral.

It’s important that we keep track of how many people try out these videos and where they are from.  During the event, please use hashtag #allweatheractive and let us know!  Post a comment and/or picture in our online event on Facebook (www.facebook.com/theflamingfries), on Twitter (twitter.com/TheFlamingFries), or on Instagram (instagram.com/TheFlamingFries).

Here is the schedule for the event:

Monday, February 22nd: Cornell Mascot Touchdown the Bear

Tuesday, February 23rd: Cornell’s On Tap Dance Troupe

Wednesday, February 24th: The Blind Spots

Thursday, February 25th: Hilby

Friday, February 26th: Cornell Men’s Hockey Team

Monday, February 29th: Moreland the Magician

Tuesday, March 1st: Vitamin L

Wednesday, March 2nd: Cornell Bhangra

Thursday, March 3rd: Nate the Great

Friday, March 4th: Dr. Brown/Mayor Myrick