A Week of Finales

This past week saw the conclusion of two programs the team has been working on throughout the spring.  Tuesday was the culmination of the Junior Achievement program which is a fantastic program that introduces elementary kids to the world of finance and today was the finale of Everybody Wins, a program we have been apart of since the fall.  For three weeks we ITAers drove forty minutes over to Unity, NH to participate in the Junior Achievement program at the Unity Elementary School.  I took on the first graders and taught about the importance of jobs, the differences between wants and needs, and how a family must work together in order to provide for each other.  It was my first attempt at teaching a specified curriculum, and boy was it a blast.  It was great to be able to work with a group of youngsters and watch as they are able to grasp and appertain what you are attempting to convey.  While teaching elementary kids might not be my calling, it sure was a fun and memorable experience.

And today saw the ending of Everybody Wins, a program that pairs mentors up with elementary students to read to them once a week during the student’s lunch hour.  This experience has been great and it was quite sad reading to my ‘mentoree’ for the last time today (he begged me to return next year to continue where we left off).  Starting off with picture books this fall, my mentoree quickly grew confident in his reading and began roaring through books, devouring the words on the page and became mystified by the tellings of Roald Dahl.  Seeing the love of storytelling and the joy of reading develop in my mentoree was a sight to be seen, and I look forward to be able to continue my weekly readings with him next school year.

But with the two programs ending, we still have plenty of volunteer work to do.  We are still working with the local high school and middle school track teams and once those wind up in the beginning of June we will move on to summer track leagues.  We are hoping to be able to start up new running groups for middle schoolers in the surrounding areas and hope to have them up and running for next fall.  After working with the various track teams in the area, I am excited to be able to spread the love of running to the surrounding towns.

Other than that news, life has been full of recovery and miles.  This weekend we see many of our ITAers competing with Brian heading off to race a 800m in the Occidental Meet in California and Dave and Toni heading down to Lowell, MA to compete in the Boston Twilight meet.  Dave will be racing the steeplechase and Toni the 1500m.  Lex and I will be left back in Hanover and will be helping out at the Hanover Invitational- a large high school invitational track meet held at Hanover High School.  So it will ‘truely’ be a busy weekend for all of us!

Until next time, 

Ben