February 17, 2009 -- LITTLE GREEN
By Jeff Friedman, Jaeger Civic Intern
Recently, Shannon Bowman, an '09 on the Dartmouth Women's Hockey Team, started a mentorship program that she called the “Little Green.” The Little Green pairs up Dartmouth Student-Athletes with students from the Cardigan Mountain Boarding School in Canaan, NH from grades six through eight. The program gives students the opportunity to leave the Cardigan campus and come to Dartmouth for an afternoon to hang out with a Dartmouth athlete, watch a Dartmouth sporting event and meet other Dartmouth athletes. The program began on February 1 when the Men's Hockey team played Harvard at home. Bowman said, “It has been very rewarding to see the connections that have formed between the Dartmouth athletes and their Little Green buddy and has been a reminder to myself of how much these kids look up to us Dartmouth athletes.” Bowman also saw how the Cardigan students had a smile on their face the whole time and really enjoyed watching the game and then getting autographs from the men's hockey players afterwards.
Bowman's passion to help mentor kids in the Upper Valley area and connect Dartmouth Athletes to middle-school students is very admirable. With the support of other Dartmouth student-athletes, the “Little Green” program is going to grow quickly and have a huge impact on some of the lives of these Cardigan students. Bowman chose Cardigan as a pilot school for her program because she notices many similarities between the two schools. Bowman said that “being in such close proximity to each other as well as sharing team colors are just a couple things that Dartmouth and Cardigan share in common and I hope that Little Green can grow into a new special bond between the two schools!” We look forward to staying in touch with the Little Green program over the coming months.
