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Pen Pals Huddle For Fun, Friendship

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By LENORA LAKE

llake@tampatrib.com

Published: February 4, 2009

NORTH TAMPA - Pen pal Sarah Sagrati and Alissia Casher found out about their similarities.

Both are 11-year-old fifth-graders - Sarah at Tampa's Sacred Heart Academy and Alissia at Brooksville Elementary. They both own dogs.

But the pen pals who meet last week also learned about their differences - including Sarah has a sister and Alissia has a brother.

The girls were among 250 students in eight elementary schools who were paired as pen pals in a writing program offered by the National Football League. The curriculum program, One World: Connecting Communities, Cultures and Classrooms, was in conjunction with Super Bowl XLIII, played in Tampa on Sunday.

On Jan. 26, the students from the eight schools - including Sacred Heart and Brooksville - met for activities at a One World Tampa Bay Huddle at Brooks-DeBartolo Collegiate High School in North Tampa. Other participating schools were Witter in Tampa, Oneco and Orange Ridge in Manatee County; High Point in Clearwater; Richey in Pasco; and Crystal Lake in Polk.

The event featured a number of NFL players who freely signed the students' shirts and talked with them about school and football.

The students created energy bars, made music, threw paint covered footballs, put painted handprints on a mural, learned hip-hop steps, had lunch and visited with the pen pal they were matched with several months ago.

"It nice we got to see each other in person instead of just through the letters," Sarah said.

Witter student John David, 11, said he liked all the activities and meeting the players, including Jermaine Phillips and Chris Hovan of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. It was the first time he had ever met professional football players, he said.

"They the organizers really entertained us," David said.

This is the fourth year for the NFL Huddle, said David Krichavsky, director of community affairs for the NFL.

The One World curriculum was developed as a way to teach about other cultures, Krichavsky said. "It is not about our differences but about our commonalities."

Some students at Brooks-DeBartolo, founded in part by Tampa Bay Buccaneer Derrick Brooks, assisted the younger students as they moved from activity to activity.

Santannah Manning, 15, a sophomore, said she was glad to help.

"I think this is a great opportunity, and I wanted to see it go off well," Manning said.

Hovan said he was pleased that Brooks had asked him to do fitness routines with the students.

"I think it a great thing for the Brooks Foundation and for his school. Here we have everything from eating to dancing; we have it all," Hovan said.

Correspondent Lenora Lake can be reached at (813) 865-4851.

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