My alma mater - Park View High School - has had a tough couple of years. Sterling, where I grew up, has been changing over the last decade or so and has become very low income and in fact the school was even designated Title 1 back in 2017. Last year, due to a lack of participants the school made the tough decision to cancel the varsity football program. This was devastating to the community - and to those of us who can't remember a fall Friday growing up that didn't include Patriot Football. What a difference from my senior year where we watched our State Championship dreams fly wide right as we missed a field goal to win the game.
Of course the community - fueled by one of our most prominent alums - Hilarie Burton (my friend and classmate) came together and Project Patriot was conceived. Over the course of the year we all chipped in donating supplies, money, & support to help make it so that football (& all the other athletic & arts programs as well) could be back in 2019! And back it was! Some of my class of 2000 friends gathered for the first home game of their varsity season and we all sported our "High School Forever" t-shirts (part of the fundraising efforts) and we spent another Friday under the lights at Park View High School. Football was back.
