As they waited for a trailer filled with back-to-school essentials to pull up, New England Patriots teammates Mack Hollins and Kyle Dugger listened to Mattahunt Elementary School assistant principal Priscilla Joseph tell an inspiring story of how teachers, staff, and the Mattapan community came together to reimagine the school.

After years of underperforming, the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary education placed the school under review and at risk of state receivership. To avoid a state takeover, the Boston Public School district made the decision to close the school in 2017 and improve it.

Entering the new school year, Mattahunt's turnaround since its closure has been well-documented, and its comeback story motivated the Patriots Foundation to select the elementary school as its 2025 Adopt-A-School.

Hollins and Dugger were in Mattapan on Tuesday to help share the news with teachers, staff, and administers.

"This school has really been built from the ground up, and I think one of the greatest things about this school is that we all had a say," said Joseph.

"We all came together and thought about how we could improve the school, and our community came together. We fought hard and that helped us to get the 'School on the Move' (award) this past year and now we're being ranked as one of the high performing schools."

Joseph herself had a huge hand in the school's 180.

Though she and many of her colleagues had to reapply for jobs with the district, they were able to create a curriculum that better catered to their specific student body with years of first-hand experience from working there.

To better support their 650-or-so students, Mattahunt improved resources for children on the autism spectrum disorder and implemented inclusion classrooms as well as general education classrooms.

Joseph personally led the launch of the school's Haitian Creole dual language programing – the first in the country – which helped show the district how bilingual and native language can help support their students in their learning.

"It's awesome to see the perseverance in the staff," said Hollins.

"The district came in and shut the school down, but they get an opportunity to come back and make it a great place, and that's what they've done. They've taken their resources and turned this place into something amazing."

For the 2025 school year, Joseph has been promoted to Mattahunt's assistant principle. Thanks to the Adopt-A-School program, she'll have help from the Patriots during the transition, starting with Tuesday's visit.

Hollins and Dugger helped volunteers carry plastic bins filled with supplies for each classroom.

Ocean State Job Lot generously delivered new backpacks for every student as well as brand new area rugs for every class to enjoy story time and morning meetings on. And partnering with Evolv Technologies, the Patriots donated bulletin board paper to help teachers decorate their classrooms and a new laminating machine – which staff was most excited about after the school's previous one broke.

"It's great that the Patriots and the Kraft family can give back to the students and the teachers as well – whether it's the backpacks for the kids or the supplies or those carpets, because I know that all those things add up on teachers and it's those expenses that end up coming out of their pocket," Hollins said.

"So, for Kyle and I, being able to come out here and spend a little time with the teachers and in the community is always great."

Students will return to Mattahunt for the first day of school on Thursday.

Soon enough, they'll learn they were selected by the Patriots as their Adopt-A-School, a program created to expand access to education opportunities and improve efforts around learning, reading and physical activity in local schools.

"The kids are going to be so happy when they hear about this partnership," said Joseph.

"We've kind of hinted to them that something fun was coming so they're very excited and I want to thank the Patriots for giving these kids an opportunity. We have a lot of kids with trauma, who have migrated here from Haiti and have gone through the journey through Chile, and there are a lot of inner-city kids looking to see positive impact in the community, so I thank you guys and am excited to see all that we do together this year. This is just the beginning."