Service with a smile at Narbonne High School Community Garden

We started off the day at the Narbonne Community Garden to teach students how they can lend a helping hand within our local community. Sharefest helped start the garden as a 2013 Workday project and our YDA students lent a hand today to help the garden continue to to grow and feed veterns and thier families.

Like the peppers, pumpkins, and eggplants in the garden, these kids’ excitement grew as they saw how much work they accomplished together. Weeds were pulled up, leaves were raked, plants were watered, and most importantly, friendships were nurtured as middle school and high school students worked extremely hard to clear out an overgrowing garden plot. Even the interns helped tidy up!

As the sun rose high over our heads, the whistle blew and it was already time for lunch. Hooray for Subway and Chick-fil-a ! There was much joy and munching as the sandwiches were passed around and the cool, clear water refreshed our throats

Interestingly, one of the YDA interns, Rebecca, participated in Narbonne’s JROTC program and invited the high school JROTC students to perform for us, with step-shows and rifle tosses.

We’d like to thank our sponsors and supporters for another day spent lending a hand to Narbonne High School’s Community Garden and creating lasting change in our communities.

YDA reflections.....

Camp is 75% complete, and it feels like we just started yesterday! Though we only have a week to go, we are still going strong and packing a lot fun and development into each day. From writing thank you letters to our sponsors, to enjoying the competition on the capture the flag field, or seeing who can hold their breath the longest in the pool, the middle school students had a great day of fun and reflection. The high school students delved into learning tips to survive the SAT with Dr. Genvieve Richards and ended the day with water baloon toss games by the pool. 

Not only do the students have access to amazing professional, such as Dr. Richards, but they also get to interact daily with ten talented young men and woman, the YDA counselors. A few of the counselors reflected on the past three weeks. Overall they have enjoyed their time during this camp and show a great passion for leading these kids. When asked about her experience with Session One students, Megan said, “I had the pleasure of being a counselor for an amazing group of kids. They were awesome and we had so much fun each and every day of camp. I already miss them!” While Megan is a bit sad to see her kids go counselor Sergio was excited about getting to meet and impact Session Two students. Many of counselors say they have learned so much, from their kids and are so thankful for the opportunity to participate in YDA. This video from Gabe sums up the impact of being a counselor for Sharefest:

As he expressed the best thing about Sharefest is he is able to give back to his community. Thank you so much to all our wonderful staff, counselors and sponsors, for your hard work and dedication to our mission!  

A wonderful visit with Councilman Joe Buscaino!

Arriving at camp this morning things seemed a bit gloomy, the sky was dark and grey. But leave it to our wonderful camp director, Anwar to bring the energy! The camp was divided into two groups and a “hype off” took place to see what group can be the most enthusiastic! After three rounds of intense cheering, the Wolfgang group prevailed. With a newfound energy one group headed out to the baseball field and the other to the pool! 

On the field coaches and players from the San Pedro High School Program were back to teach the basics of baseball. Some students showed natural talent, other showed great improvement over a short amount of time. Back at the pool, students continued their daily lessons improving their swimming skills and enjoying the freedom of free swim time! 

After an earlier lunch, a special guest visit by Councilman Joe Buscaino took place! There was so much excitement as the students greeted the councilman. After photos and many handshakes, Councilman Buscaino went to speak with our high school students. They were full of interesting questions such as “At what age did you realize you wanted to seve your community?” and “How do I get in touch with a my city council member? Councilman Buscaino shared his story of how his love for serving the community was born. He also empowered the students by expressing to them that they have a voice and they can have an impact on their community. The students were so grateful for the opportunity to speak with the Councilman Buscaino. Thank you for all that you do for Sharefest and the community!

College Readiness, Yoga & Swimming! We do it all at YDA!

The second day of session two started with a survey. The high school students wanted to know how much the middle school students knew about college readiness. Once the younger students finished the survey, the high school students revealed that they are in the process of preparing for college as well.

Having the older students conduct this survey accomplished a few goals. First, it gave the high school studentsa chance to work on thier leadership and reseach skills.  Secondly, the questions will be presented to City Councilman Joe Busciano when he visits this week. Most importantly, the survey got everyone involved to think about all the various university options we have!

After the survey was taken, the two groups parted ways. The older students were stationed in Dominguez Hills’ computer lab to assess and review the answers, exercising their brain muscles. In contrast, younger students exercised their bodies in the dance room and in the pool. 

At the pool, students were broken down into groups depending on their ability to swim. “Just keep swimming, just keep swimming” was the motto as some struggled to kick and tread water. By the end of the day, they were swimming as well as Dorey in “Finding Nemo”.

In the dance room, we started off with team building stretches and yoga poses!  The friendship flower was everyone’s favorite! This stretch involved a group of six or more, using upper body strength and the weight of other group members to create a flower. 

It was fun to see all of us try and try until we accomplished the “perfect” flower. Hooray for an awesome swim and dance day!

Sharefest Youth Development Academy ~ Session 2!

 

We were so excited about welcoming Session 2 middle school students to their first day at Sharefest where cool activities and even cooler staff members are waiting to make this the best summer ever!

Sitting out on the grassy hill, we dug into healthy and delicious nutrigrain-banana-milk-apple juice breakfast bags. High school students from the last session joined us for breakfast as well, and then quickly headed for their college prep workshops.

YDA Summer Team Director Anwar (who is totally cool!) whistled everybody into attention and introduced us to our counselors. We played crazy icebreaker games like “back to back” and “the human knot”. A shy and unsure morning quickly turned silly and fun as we began building friendships.

 Afterwards, we regrouped with our team leaders to take the Academy’s annual group shot in the parking lot of California State Dominguez Hills’ campus.

Everybody say “Sharefest”!!

As the day was coming to a close, we jumped in the pool, feeling the warm sun on our backs, and thinking about what we’ll be doing the next day.

Today was so much fun! Can’t wait to do more tomorrow!