AALEAD MD Summer Serve: First Week
By Melor Suhaimi, MD Programs Manager
Photos Courtesy of AALEAD Staff
The 2014 – 2015 school year wrapped up quickly, but MD AALEADers jumped right into the summer program at AALEAD’s MD Summer Serve. Located at Parkland Middle School in Rockville, MD, AALEAD high school youth kicked off the week on Monday, getting to know each other through fun icebreakers, received more information on college, and began planning for AALEAD’s Youth Summit, which will take place at the end of July. Every Monday for the next five weeks, AALEAD’s high school youth will get an opportunity to learn more about the college process and finalize details of the Youth Summit.
On Tuesday morning, AALEAD’s middle and high school youth joined forces to kick off the first official day of Summer Serve, with 80 youth filling up Parkland Middle School’s gym! To get the youth energized and pumped for the first week, AALEAD staff led a zumba routine and then youth were introduced to their small groups. With a total of 8 groups, there were a few quiet and shy middle school youth, but AALEAD’s high school youth stepped up and led icebreakers and together created team names for their small group. The official team names of Summer Serve are: Supa Hawt Fya, Titan Slayer, Squad Squad, Optimus, Lotus Leaders, Pandas, Heavenly Seven, and Team Loud!
As with every first meeting, AALEAD staff knew that we had to make sure AALEAD youth began building relationships with each other and felt comfortable. The rest of the week continued with various activities where youth were asked to create their own Rube Goldberg machine in their small groups. And AALEAD staff led a cross-cultural cooking workshop, which asked youth to gather various ingredients to create their very own sushi roll.
By Wednesday afternoon, AALEAD youth were already asking about the first field trip of Summer Serve. With anticipation and an exciting, loud drum-roll, AALEADers were ecstatic to find out that there first field trip was to Sky Zone Trampoline Park in Columbia, MD! Yesterday, the Sky Zone venue was filled with 60 AALEADers jumping on trampolines playing dodgeball and shooting hoops. It was a tiring, but very fun, exhilarating first field trip! We are looking forward and excited to see how the next five weeks of Summer Serve will be!
