To celebrate the end of a successful school year, the Miami HEAT and the Miami SOL hosted the HEAT Academy Carnival on Wednesday, June 5 at Horace Mann Middle School, located at 8950 NW 2nd Avenue in Miami Shores. Approximately 230 students, who are enrolled in HEAT Academy academic after-school programs in three area schools, attended the annual Carnival. Miami HEAT player Malik Allen and Miami SOL player Lindsey Yamasaki also participated in the festivities, interacting with students during the event.

The Carnival, which began at 2:30 p.m. and ended at 5:00 p.m., featured an awards presentation for outstanding Horace Mann HEAT Academy students. Allen handed out personalized jerseys to 30 students who have excelled in their studies, while Yamasaki presented HEAT Academy teachers with special gifts of recognition. The awards ceremony was followed by a fun-filled celebration designed to reward students for their hard work during the school year. The students took advantage of snowcone and popcorn machines, a bounce house, as well as other entertaining games and activities. McDonald’s donated cheeseburgers, soda, chips and cookies for the festivities, and every student received a special HEAT lunchbox. Also on hand to amuse the kids was the HEAT and SOL’s lovable mascots, Burnie and SOLEE.

The HEAT Academy students who attended the Carnival are in the midst of completing first through fifth grades, as well as seventh. They are each enrolled at one of three HEAT Academy after-school programs, located at Horace Mann Middle School, Dunbar Elementary School and Little River Elementary School.

Background on HEAT Academy: In support of our public schools, the HEAT partnered with the Miami-Dade Public School Board in 1999 to create HEAT Academy, the HEAT’s longtime vision of an academic after-school program. Wholly underwritten by the HEAT and its “HEAT Corporate Partners in Education,” the program covers all costs from classroom materials to after-school teacher salaries to student snacks. The goal: to provide an academically and emotionally nurturing after-school safe haven for youth, where they can receive additional academic instruction by certified teachers, as well as tutoring and mentoring by HEAT and SOL staff and players, using a HEAT theme-based curriculum co-created by the HEAT and the School Board. HEAT Academy has garnered numerous awards, including the Commissioner’s Business Recognition Award, presented by Florida Commissioner of Education Charlie Crist. To date, three HEAT Academy sites are flourishing at Dunbar Elementary School, Little River Elementary School and Horace Mann Middle School. A fourth site is scheduled to open this fall at Riverside Elementary School in Little Havana.