Kaie Quigley, a senior at Lasell (Mass.) University, who grew up in West Wardsboro and attended Leland & Gray Union Middle and High School, presented his ‘Red for Threads’ project to the Red Sox foundation executives and was selected as the best among seven groups from his class at Lasell, where he is majoring in communications with a focus in sports and a minor in journalism. His project, a clothing drive program that puts the spotlight on young adult homelessness, would provide fans with a commemorative t-shirt at the first home game against the New York Yankees in exchange for a donation of money or clothing.
Quigley and other students in Young-Tae Kim’s sports marketing course participated in a semester-long project aimed at creating a new program for the foundation that would have a positive impact on local Boston communities and making a corresponding marketing plan. The idea was initiated by a collaboration between Kim and the foundation’s director of programs Brad Schoonmaker, who collaborated on the Connected Learning program, with the goal of expanding project-based learning opportunities for students to better understand marketing through real-world, professional assignments.
Quigley is not new to project-based learning. His journey in the field started in his junior year of high school when due to a lack of classes and clubs for journalism, his teachers at Leland & Gray connected him with Shane Covey, sports editor at the Reformer at the time, and he ended up covering Leland & Gray sports for the paper.
While participating in Kim’s class, Quigley was able to reflect back at the project-based learning that he did in high school, which proved to be so beneficial for him as he was designing his project. Jessa Harger, the director of the Journey