Backflips for backpacks: 9-year-old Southington gymnast ready to do ‘eight thousand 10 million’ for back-to-school gear
A 9-year-old gymnast from Southington is using her talent to help kids in the community gear up for the new school year by hosting a “Backflips for Backpacks” event on the Southington Town Green on Saturday.
Evelyn Hawley has vowed to do one backflip for every school supply item donated between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. on Saturday, with plans to bring all of the school supplies to Southington Community Services to support students who need help with school supplies for the upcoming school year.
When asked just how many backflips she thinks she can do, the state champion gymnast estimated a confident “eight thousand ten million.”
Hawley, who is about to enter fourth grade at Hatton Elementary School in Southington, came up with the idea to combine her passion for gymnastics with her love of giving back to folks in need in her hometown.
“Evelyn loves to give back to her community and she has since she was 6,” said her mother, Candice Mazzarella. “She has a really big passion for helping everybody in need who needs help.”
Mazzarella said the 9-year-old helps out with food drives for a local food pantry, draws pictures for the elderly and sends cards to people who belong to their church who are homebound. She cleans out her room monthly and donates her favorite clothes and toys to other kids who might be in need.
Mazzarella said her family’s core value is “always to give back when we can,” a sentiment that has been instilled in Hawley from a young age.
Hawley said her volunteer work has taught her “How to be a good person and help others when they need help.”
Making donations gives her “a warm fuzzy feeling,” she said, so she wants to do it as much as she can. She said she’s excited to close out her summer by flipping around the town green and making sure other students are ready to get back into their classrooms, too.
“Evelyn just loves to help people,” Mazzarella said. “And putting her gymnastics into a fundraiser is just amazing.”
More than 30 local businesses have helped promote the young athlete’s school-supply drive, hanging flyers in their storefronts to help draw a crowd at the town green.
Mazzarella said she wasn’t surprised by the outpouring of support. Southington, she said, is that type of town.
Although front flips are Hawley’s favorite gymnastics activity, she decided to challenge herself by doing as many backflips — her second favorite gymnastics move — she needs to give back.
Wes Norris, who coaches Hawley at CATS Gymnastics in Cheshire, said she is a fun, strong, energetic and “talented gymnast who has the potential to have a very long and successful gymnastics career.”
Norris said he was impressed to learn that Hawley was using her gymnastics skills to help other kids.
“She found her niche and is using it to give back to the community,” said Norris. “And to make that realization that she can do that at such a young age is certainly admirable.”
“Any way that Evelyn, at her age, is able to get back, she’s very enthusiastic about doing so,” Mazzarella said.
Anyone can take part in the “Backflips for Backpacks” event by bringing backpacks or other school supplies to the Southington Town Green between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. on Saturday.
