In the week leading up to the game, the students of Cunniff Elementary put together a pep rally for their mentors, which included big banners, cheers, and Harvard pennants that they brought to the game.
“They worked really hard on them and wanted to look up all the pictures of Harvard logos and things to put on them,” Sauder said. “They brought them home, and some of them keep what they made in their lockers.”
But while the Cunniff children were being entertained at the game, the Harvard baseball team was also clearly affected by the students’ presence.
“It was awesome to see the kids there at the game,” Doyle said. “The whole experience is so rewarding and incredible. Seeing them come give you a hug every Friday when you get there—it just makes you weak.”
“It’s really neat for me to see how genuinely interested the kids are in learning and just hanging around us,” senior Jordan Haviland echoed. “We’re usually all pretty tired when we get over there in the morning, but we all leave in really good moods and are feeling pretty great about the world when we get out of there.”
—Staff writer Taryn I. Kurcz can be reached at tkurcz13@college.harvard.edu.