Thousands of homeschool families will be gathering during the third week in October for their version of a giant family reunion. Classical Conversations®, the world’s largest classical homeschooling organization, will be celebrating its 20th anniversary Oct. 18 in 10 different locations around the country.
From its humble beginnings with 11 students and one tutor in 1997, CC has grown to 114,000 students led by over 15,000 contracted directors and tutors. Forty-five thousand homeschool families participate in CC programs in 2,500 communities located in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam and 15 foreign countries.
Thousands of CC families will be headed to celebrations in Boston, Charlotte, Dallas, Orlando, Cincinnati, Colorado Springs, Anaheim, California, Williamsburg, Virginia, Bloomington, Minnesota and Grand Mound, Washington. The regional venues were selected so that as many CC families as possible can attend.
“Between all 10 venues there will be room for more than 6,000 people to attend,” said Robert Bortins, Classical Conversations CEO, “so we encourage CC families to not only attend themselves but to invite former CC families and friends of CC as well. We want these celebrations to be homecomings of a sort, as CC families from several states come together to celebrate. You are bound to run into old friends and familiar faces. It’s like a gigantic reunion of the CC family!”
Leigh Bortins, founder of Classical Conversations, Mike Farris, founder of the Home School Legal Defense Association and Patrick Henry College and new CEO of the Alliance Defending Freedom, and Andrew Pudewa, founder and director of the Institute for Excellence in Writing, are among the speakers for the evening in Charlotte. More than 1,000 guests are expected there, and much of that celebration will be simulcast around the country.
Tickets for the celebration are $30 per family until Oct. 17, although some of the celebration venues have already sold out. To check on availability and to purchase tickets, go to: https://www.eventbrite.com/o/classical-conversations-inc-13641335570.
Seven of the 10 celebration sites will be at Great Wolf Lodge resorts, the largest family of indoor water park/hotels in the U.S. with 13 resorts. Great Wolf Lodges were selected to allow CC families to build mini vacations around the 20th-anniversary celebrations.
In the fall of 1997, Leigh Bortins began teaching a once-a-week, classical-model program in rhetoric in the basement of her Winston-Salem, North Carolina, home with her oldest son, Robert, and 10 of his friends.
For more information about the 20th-anniversary celebrations, contact CC’s customer support at 910-684-5665 or www.classicalconversations.com/support. Classical Conversations is a family-owned company headquartered in Southern Pines, North Carolina. For more information about CC, visit www.classicalconversations.com.
