On Sunday, Sept. 28, the Eliza J. Norton (EJN) Foundation held its third annual Celebrate With Heart festival from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the Cochituate Fields. The festival is held to not only celebrate the life of Eliza Norton, who attended Claypit Hill Elementary School, but create a community where kids feel empowered in society and athletics.
Some background: What is the EJN foundation?
The Eliza J. Norton Foundation was founded in 2023 after 10 year old E. Norton passed away unexpectedly on Sept. 21, 2022. E. Norton participated in multiple sports: soccer, softball, hockey and swimming.
“[The foundation] started off because Eliza loved being on sports teams and being with her teammates and her friends,” mom of E. Norton and Co-Founder of the EJN Foundation Julie Norton said.
The EJN Foundation was founded by J. Norton and her husband, E. Norton’s dad, Mark Norton. According to both J. and M. Norton, there are three goals for the foundation: empowering children, enabling play and expanding access. Each goal is inspired by aspects of E. Norton’s life.
“We also want to empower kids to feel good about themselves,” J. Norton said. “We heard a lot of stories about how she would build up her friends, so we have a whole [branch] that focuses on empowerment.”
The EJN Foundation contributes to both education and empowerment in the Wayland school community. On Dec. 11, 2023, the organization invited Holocaust speaker Katie Preston to speak to middle and high school students. Preston shared her experience as a Holocaust survivor, and explained why the world should never experience that sort of tragedy again. In addition, the foundation has raised $10,000 for the East Coast Wizard Program (ECW) and will give $2,000 in scholarships to five ECW players. The EJN foundation has also installed new dugouts, benches and bat holders for Wayland’s athletes.
“We wanted to try and give opportunities to be part of a team for more kids,” J. Norton said.
The EJN Foundation received an award from the Myra Kraft Community MVP awards program, which helped raise the amount of donations the foundation received. The EJN Foundation partners up with local businesses through events for fundraising assistance.
“We do [events] to empower kids and fundraise for sports everywhere, so [that] kids can be able to play sports because sometimes it can be expensive,” E. Norton’s sister Jenna Norton said.
Back to the event:
Several local organizations and volunteers came together for the festival, including various Wayland High School sports teams, such as girls soccer, girls field hockey, boys football and girls volleyball. The sports teams helped set up before the festival, ran stands and cleaned up afterwards.
Some non-sports programs were also involved in the event, such as the Wayland National Arts Honors Society (NAHS) and Wayland Girl Scouts.
There were several activities available for the child attendees, including bouncy houses, arts and crafts, photobooths, painting pumpkins, hair braiding, temporary tattoos and face painting.
“For the past several years, the high school teams have been volunteering to do the face paint [and] to do the hair braiding,” J. Norton said.
Vagabond, a band led by WHS students, had a feature in the first portion of the event. Some of the songs they played included Fluorescent Adolescence by the Arctic Monkeys, Santeria by Sublime and Yellow by Coldplay.
“We were honored to support such a great cause and thankful that we had the privilege of playing for everybody,” lead singer Ben Hammond said. “We had a great time.”
The WHS girls soccer team did hair braiding, and NAHS ran a face painting booth. The WHS field hockey team brought a temporary tattoo booth for EJN tattoos.
“[The girls soccer team] is just here to help out and do fun events, like hair braiding and face painting to help the community,” senior captain Marie Geronimo said. “We have done this every year because it’s super fun and we all enjoy helping out.”
How to get involved with the EJN foundation:
For both WHS students and Middlesex School students, a private school in Concord, there is the opportunity to join an EJN club. Wayland resident Mia Koopersmith leads the Middlesex branch, and senior Molly Bergeron leads the WHS branch.
For Middlesex, the club meets once a month. This past semester, Middlesex’s club organized a tribute hockey game. All the participating players had on teal tape and the number 37 in remembrance of E. Norton. The club also sold pants, spreading awareness of the EJN Foundation during the game. This upcoming semester, they are hoping to continue the tribute game, organize a book drive and have a kindness week.
“I hope that students at Middlesex gain a closer sense of community through the club and its work just because it’s a foundation that’s connected locally to Massachusetts and Wayland,” Koopersmith said.
At WHS, Bergeron created the club to spread awareness for the foundation to WHS students. The club aims to get more volunteers to help out at activities, like the Celebrate with Heart Festival. They also aim to create new ways of building awareness for the foundation and its message to the community and other high schoolers.
“[My goal is to] make it a great club and have so much fun,” Bergeron said. “[I want to] really bring that fun aspect Eliza would want into the community and high schoolers, through all age levels.”
If you are unable to join any of the EJN clubs, you can also donate both money and books. This helps to continue Eliza’s legacy and further the goals of the foundation. Participating and supporting the events, like Celebrate With Heart, is another way that people can get involved.
“This [Celebrate With Heart event] started as a thank you to our community when we needed them the most,” J. Norton said. “It kind of just turned into this beautiful day of bringing people together and having a lot of fun.”
