Imagination teams strive for competition

Hugh McMillan

special to the Gateway

At a booth just inside the a Safeway store on Saturday, J.D. Fullerton contributed to a fundraising effort on the part of the Gig Harbor Destination Imagination teams from Kopachuck Middle and Voyager Elementary schools, which will be representing the Gig Harbor community and the state at the Global Finals Competition in Knoxville, Tenn.

Cece Lively and her daughter, Casie, and fellow Kopachuck Middle School seventh-grader Jacob Stewart manned the booth. Both are members of the Destination Imagination team, which will compete against teams from 47 states and 34 countries.

Destination Imagination is a non-profit, creative problem-solving competition. Children from third grade through college research their chosen problem and present their solutions in the form of an eight-minute skit to a panel of judges.

The Gig Harbor DI team has been working on its solutions for eight-plus months.

“DI is a great program, and just about anyone can get involved,” Casie Lively said.

The Kopachuck team consists of Philip Olson, Zoe Pollard, Cheyenne Wong, Lively and Jacob Stewart. The Voyager team members, all of whom have been together for two years, are Cayla Berejikian, Blake Swanson, Reiley DiLoreto and Mikayla Stewart.

Katie Stewart, who is “proud to be a DI coach for six wonderful years,” said: “We have been trying to raise funds to get back to Knoxville by selling discounted car washes good at the Great Car Wash on Kimball Drive, and 23 other locations in the Puget Sound. One ticket is $8, (saving $2) and three tickets are $20 (saving $10).

They will be selling their tickets this Friday night and Saturday morning at Albertsons and Safeway in Gig Harbor.

“Both teams would like to give a huge thank you to all of the individuals and organizations who have helped our team to try and reach our goals,” the coach said. “I would like to add how touched I am that, in these difficult economic times, the community of Gig Harbor still stepped forward to help these kids to go and represent our state and city.”

Send tax-deductible donations to the Gig Harbor Venture Bank under the account “Destination Imagination.”

For information, e-mail coach Katie Stewart at billandkt@hotmail.com.