Last Thursday our SOHO mentors and girls met for the first time at our Opening Ceremony. Our mentors had spent time together and our girls all knew eachother from school but the was the first time the two groups got to be in the same room! All of them come in knowing they'll meet their "big sister" or "little sister" that night - but nobody knows who this person will be until the end of the night.
From the moment the girls entered the room we had a wonderful, positive energy for each activity. We started off the night with a potluck -style snack brought in by our lovely mentors. Girls and mentors ate together and started to get to know each other.
The group was introduced to our Lead Artist Instructor Tesni Stephen, Photography Instructor, Liana Elguero, and the program's coordinator Jordan Roeder. Everyone was split up into small groups and given a tour of the entire VisArts building so they could learn about what happens here. This was also a time to talk about respect and the many forms that it can take: respecting others in the group by listening, respecting students in the building by being quiet in the halls, and respecting everyone by showing a positive attitude and a smile!
Then it was time for our scavenger hunt were girls and mentors worked together to solve clues that led them to the matching ceremony. Teams came up with their own name and practiced respect by being quiet in the building as they searched. Eventually all the girls made it to our fiber studio which was specially set up for matching ceremony.
Within this new "magical room", Tesni talked about what it means to be grateful and what it means to say thanks. Specifically, she talked about how you can show gratitude and thanks through much more then the words "thank you". Girls talked about how they could show gratitude for their mentors, their families and friends by being sweet, kind and helpful.
Each chair in the room had a small gift bag with the girls name name on it which the holds a clue to who their sister is. Each bag held a word that described their big or little sister and started with the first letter of the first name. Big sisters and little sisters scrambled to find each other - we saw lots of screams, hugs, jumping up and down, and even a few tears once they found one another!
Finally, everyone gathered for closing circle and talked about what they were grateful for. Almost everyone present mentioned how they were thankful for SOHO: for their new big or little sister, for their new friends, for the "awesome food"...
"I am grateful for my new big sister."
"I am thankful for my new SOHO family."
We are looking forward to yet another amazing year of SOHO!
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