This fund is intended as a lasting tribute by Laura Trust and Alan Litchman to the memory of Jack and Jordan Trust Litchman. It will honor their family’s love of the ocean and support science programs in the Brookline Elementary Schools.

Each year, the fund will pay for an annual visit at the third-grade level in all eight Brookline elementary schools by the Traveling Tidepool exhibit of the New England Aquarium. It also will fund professional development classes at the aquarium for interested teachers, aides and interns. Students will handle and observe a wide range of live animals from local waters in unique tabletop exhibits that recreate salt marsh, sandy beach and rocky coast habitats. Subsequent discussions will focus on each student’s experience with these habitats and the adaptations of animals that live in them.

The Brookline Education Foundation was chosen by the Trust Litchman family as the recipient of this fund in recognition its support of the Brookline Public Schools. It is the family’s hope that this fund will honor the memory of Jack and Jordan’s brief existence by growing and continuing to support the Brookline Public School’s Science curriculum over many years to come. Contributions to the Jack and Jordan Trust Litchman Fund may be sent to the Brookline Education Foundation at P.O. Box 470652, Brookline MA 02447 or made online.

The New England Aquarium's Traveling Tidepool exhibit is coming soon to a Brookline elementary school near you. This exhibit, which opened on Oct. 12 at the Baker School, and is continuing around all elementary schools until November, allows third grade students to handle live animals from local waters in tabletop exhibits.

This traveling exhibit is a brand new addition to the Brookline elementary schools funded by the newly established Jack and Jordan Trust Litchman Fund. The fund was established this year through the Brookline Education Foundation to fund ocean and tide-pool studies in the third grade across Brookline Elementary schools. Donated by Brookline residents and Finagle-A-Bagel co-owners Laura Trust and Alan Litchman, who have a son in Brookline public schools, it is named for their twin babies who died prematurely last winter.

"We wanted to honor the twins and do something for the Brookline public schools," says Laura Trust. The twins would have gone to Brookline Public Schools, as does her 4-year-old son Sam. "The Brookline public schools have been very good to us."

But why tidepools? Trust explains: "Our family spends a fair amount of time on Cape Cod, so the twins would have spent a lot of time on the beach. We knew about the tidepool exhibit and thought it would be a nice connection."

In addition to annually bringing the tide-pool exhibit to all third-grade classes, the fund will help pay for ocean and tide-pool studies at the third-grade level. It will also provide teacher development classes for teachers, aides, and interns interested, through the New England Aquarium. The fund is expected to have $100,000 in it soon.

Trust, who was present at Lawrence School when the exhibit was first shown to third-graders there, said they "seemed to really enjoy it." She added that the Brookline Education Foundation has received "very positive" emails from Brookline public school science teachers. In the meantime, a pregnant Trust looks forward to the day when her own children can enjoy the exhibit. "That's a nice thought," she says.

Contributions to the Jack and Jordan Litchman Fund may be sent to the Brookline Education Foundation, P.O. Box 460652, Brookline, MA 02447 or through the Web site at www.BrooklineEducation.org.