The wild success of last week’s Bowl for Kids event left us with quite a conundrum here in the office. Is there a bowling metaphor, we wondered, that would accurately convey how ecstatic we were with the turnout and energy at Thursday’s event? Call it a strike, turkey, kingpin or a smorgasbord of spares; whatever the (cheesy) metaphor, it doesn’t do justice to the final count:

$145,605

That’s enough for comprehensive programming at two of our partner schools: field trips, music lessons, literacy tutoring, Story Pirates, art education, early reading, and school supplies for 1,400 students. PLUS, enough left over to add tutoring sessions on Saturdays, expand fitness and nutrition programming, and ramp up our music program to include more students than we’ve ever been able to serve.

Beyond the numbers, though, Bowl for Kids gave us a lot of reasons to celebrate, most especially for the progress our students make every year. For those of you not with us on Thursday, you missed not only one awesome (and packed) party, but some truly inspiring performances. It’s one thing to know that your dollars are funding music lessons for NYC students; it’s something entirely different to see nine- and ten-year-olds dressed like professionals and performing with style and grace in front of a huge group of adults. Major congratulations to our three musicians—Georgia, Jessica, and Asheley—for their gutsy and very endearing work on violin and keyboard, and to Samantha, whose story “My Brother Versus the Goldfish” kept us all in stitches.

“I was shy at first,” she told Lee Overtree, Story Pirates founding member, about seeing her work on stage. “But then I liked it because I want to entertain people.” We were all, of course, thrilled to hear that she had several other pieces in the works.

We were also thrilled to see Principal Karen Hambright of P.S. 243, Assistant Principal Cheryl Bender of P.S. 160, and Assistant Principal Craig Monteverde of P.S. 73. Throw in our violin teacher, Mr. Majid, our pianist, Ms. Ai, and our fitness instructor, Justin Jones, and Bowlmor on Thursday night was a virtual pantheon of professional educators. We are not exaggerating when we say we work with some of the finest teachers in the city.

Finally, we’re grateful for the ridiculously generous support you all provided through your donations, event attendance, and silent auction purchases. Special thanks go out to our sponsors—Knovel, Tri-State Employment Services, Arc90, Atlantic-Pacific Capital, and Davis & Gilbert—as well as Elaine Crowley, the Schecter Family, and Jared Dolce and his Deutsche Bank crew, who completely cleaned us out of tickets.

If you’re interested in learning more about some of the programs the event is funding, make sure to check out our posts on the Story Pirates P.S. 73 performance with Yankees Nick Swisher and Dave Robertson, our soon-to-be famous fitness and nutrition program at P.S. 243, and last year’s Fifth-Grade Poetry Project. And, of course, drop us a line anytime if you’d like to volunteer with one of our programs or visit one of the schools.

It was wonderful to see you all last week. It’s a real honor to have friends like you.

Rosanna Scotto with husband Louis and Seth Weinstein

Chairman Chris Forbes, Pentagram Designer Luke Hayman, Executive Director Colin Smith

The Schecter Family, sporting stylish CFK bowling shirts

Georgia and Jessica serenade the crowd

Ronnie Jaber frantically bids on Gossip Girl set visit

You can see the rest of the photos from last Thursday here.