Connecticut CASA is participating in the April 26-May 2 online “Great Give”; it includes matching incentives, so please consider donating, and circulating information about this online philanthrophy event, including our profile.

Also, the Arts Paper covered our April 17 Benefit, held at the Yale Child Study Center with a musical performance by the Shades of Yale. Lead sponsors included Yale University and Claire's Corner Copia, with sponsorship also from Yale New Haven Children's Hospital, the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, the NewAlliance Foundation, and Better Rhodes. The Wine Thief donated wine. Thanks to everyone who attended/contributed, as well as to all who support our child advocacy work year-round!

In previewing the event earlier, a shoreline outlet noted two local neighbors among our new Board members.  (We also have Advisors and Ambassadors.)

This blog has periodically reflected on UConn men's basketball, for example in April 2011, April 2014, and April 2023.  Each of those years produced titles, as in 1999 and 2004.  Now, the Huskies have done it again.

One pre-season ESPN collection of predictions had excluded UConn altogether from the predicted final four for 2023-24; one pundit (M. Medcalf)'s forecast was that a "title hangover" from 2023 would doom the Huskies to an early exit from the tournament in 2024.

Yet UConn has shown that, with what is now a 12-1 record across 7 final fours in the last 25 NCAA men's tournaments, and a 6-0 record in title games, it isn't hyperbole to call Storrs the "basketball capital of the world"--at least the college world, particularly with the UConn women as holders of 11 championships and a remarkable 23 final four appearances during the past three decades or so.  (The UConn women are 11-1 in title games, making the men and women a combined 17-1 in those games.)

The result was yet another "shining moment."

As the Hartford Courant recently described, Connecticut CASA has expanded to the Hartford area/statewide.

The article also notes recent additions to the organization's Board:

*Linda Mayes, MD (who directs the Yale Child Study Center);

*Brent Peterkin (who has led Project Longevity, among other endeavors); and

*Merle Berke-Schlessel (who led the United Way of Coastal Fairfield County for nearly two decades).

Join Connecticut CASA for an April 17, 2024 Benefit, featuring the outstanding Shades of Yale a cappella group on Wednesday, April 17, from 5:30-7 p.m. at the Cohen Auditorium of the Yale Child Study Center, 230 South Frontage Road.

A first-year student at Yale has launched a nonprofit venture to support youth development through basketball in his hometown of Goma, Congo.  A fiscally sponsored project of Dwight Hall, it's called the Jeannot Basima Basketball Camp and Foundation.  See the web page here.

In addition, here is a powerful 40-minute documentary, filmed in 2019, that includes glimpses of Jeannot when he was age 14, finishing his 8th-grade year at New York Military Academy after growing up in Goma.  (He later moved to a high school in Maryland, and then in summer 2023 returned to Goma for the first time in five years before arriving in New Haven for the fall 2023 semester.)