Hamelses hit a homer at W. Kensington school

Cole Hamels stood in the doorway of Allen Pinkney's Stetson Middle School classroom yesterday morning, eyes fixed on a music teacher belting out an aria.

"Amazing," the Phillies pitcher whispered to his wife, Heidi.

When Pinkney finished, the couple cheered and clapped.

"I brought my husband to see you, Mr. Pinkney," Heidi Hamels said. Then, turning to Cole, she added: "I told them you sing like a dead bird."

The room erupted in laughter, but it was pretty clear that no one minded Cole Hamels' lack of singing skills. Through their nonprofit, the Hamels Foundation, the couple donated $50,000 to spruce up the Kensington public school.

Yesterday, they toured Stetson with second-year principal Renato Lajara, who pointed out what their money purchased - choir risers, a spotlight, video equipment, microscopes, lab tables, computers, seating in the gym, a kiln for the art room, even an electric keyboard for Pinkney, the school's first music teacher in years, to play in class.

The school is also adding a choir, a drama club, and two sports teams - girls' volleyball and golf - with the money.

The things sure help, but what's better, Lajara said, are the intangibles.

Stetson, which educates about 650 fifth through eighth graders, is typically in the news for trouble. The number of assaults there has landed Stetson on the federal list of "persistently dangerous" schools, which allows parents to transfer their children elsewhere.

When Lajara, who grew up in the neighborhood and attended public schools, arrived at Stetson last year, he knew that students and teachers "needed hope."

"For Cole and Heidi to do this, it just gave us a huge shot in the arm," Lajara said. "The community around us will start to believe in us and want to send their children here."

Although the tour was mostly private so as to not interrupt instruction, the visitors got a peek inside the science lab, where 30 students at brand-new tables were using microscopes and triple-beam scales to perform experiments.

Before the Hamels' contribution, "the kids would sit at little tables, with stuff falling off," Lajara said.

"Things were held together with duct tape," Heidi Hamels said of the old lab.

The room now known as the Hamels Instructional Media Center hadn't been used for six years. It still lacks a librarian and has mismatched bookcases and a brown carpet with bare patches, but once Heidi Hamels saw the crumbling room, she and her mother, foundation operations manager Kathleen Dugas, went into action.

They helped scrub the room, replaced the ceiling tiles, got it painted a bright green, and removed all the library books printed before 1950. The foundation chipped in for new computers.

Heidi Hamels, who used to teach gym, health, and biology in rural Missouri, said the school had been chosen from among more than 30 applications she and foundation staff visited. She loved the vibe Lajara brought to Stetson, she said, and she hopes the students take a message from the grant.

"You can do this. You're worth it," said Heidi Hamels, who's due to give birth to the couple's first child next month. "We wanted to give them something to be proud of."

Navigating the hallways of the 1915 school, Cole Hamels said he had gotten a kick out of student responses.

"Some are super-excited to see me, but some are too cool," said Hamels, who sported a gray pin-striped suit and looked like a giant amid the kid-size furniture. "But I know they follow us. I hope this makes them happy."

That would be an understatement.

Eighth grader Johany Lebron said the improvements were "a dream come true."

Pinkney's keyboard sounds great, and when she sits in the new lab, Lebron said, she feels "like a professional scientist."

Lebron is a Stetson pro, having attended since fifth grade, and her friend Destiny Clark has been there since seventh. They know, they said - things are looking up at the school.

"We didn't have the proper materials," said Clark, 13. "Cole is providing us with a much better education."

And, of course, "I'm a big Cole Hamels fan," said Lebron, also 13.

"He's really cute," Clark clarified.