Clean-up day, scholarship dinner held in student's memory
By Melissa Muntz Community Reporter

Elizabeth Connolly

Shrewsbury - Hundreds of state college students will take part in the first annual combined "Outreach to Teach" event that will be dedicated to Elizabeth (Liz) Connolly, a Shrewsbury resident and early education student who died from injuries sustained in a golf cart accident at Westfield State College last summer.

The event will begin at 9 a.m. Saturday May 3 at Walter J. Paton School in Shrewsbury, where Liz attended school as a child and where her mother, Barbara, still teaches fourth grade.

The "Outreach to Teach" event will include placing a bench and planting a garden in Liz's memory, restoring the nature trail behind the school, planting trees, cleaning up the playground area and adding mulch, cleaning and refurbishing different areas inside the building, updating the teachers' room, and adding resources to the media center and for classroom instruction.

Current and former Paton School faculty, family and friends will all be on hand to lend their support.

Those who knew Liz described her as a quiet girl who would have shied away from the attention that she's receiving, but who would have been thrilled that people were helping to clean up her mother's school. "She always went there to help her mother get ready right before the school year started to help her mom get her class - room ready so I think she'd be very happy," family friend Maria DiPilato said.

DiPilato said she's not surprised that so many people are coming out to honor Liz's memory and give back some of the kindness that she shared with so many. "If you were the new kid on the block or someone that didn't have a lot of friends, she'd take you under her wing," she said. "It was just her way."

In addition to the clean-up day, a benefit dinner will be held to raise fu nds for the two Elizabeth Connolly college scholarships that will be given out this year.

The scholarships will be given to two students who plan to enter the field of early childhood education, a subject very close to Liz's heart.

"She always gravitated toward kids," said Susan Hogan, who, along with DiPilato, is coordinating the fundraising dinner. "She babysat for a lot of the young kids in the neighborhood, and when she'd go watch her brother's baseball games she'd take the kids from the ball field over to the playground."

Only 400 tickets will be sold to the dinner, which will be held at the Manor Restaurant in West Boylston Friday June 27. The dinner will include a silent auction and disc jockey, and is largely made possible by Manor Restaurant staff who had heard about the accident and wanted to help.

Tickets are $40 for adults and $20 for high school and college students, and can be purchased by calling Susan Hogan at 508-735-0701. Both women said they expect tickets to sell out quickly because of the huge number of people who want to remember Liz in a positive way and show their support to the entire Connolly family.

"Liz just wasn't the type to ask for favors, and she was always helping everybody," Hogan said. "Now it's our turn to help."