Saying Thanks: Our SOHO Closing Ceremony

On Thursday, May 15^th the SOHO program officially came to a close with our final night: a beautiful mixture of friends, family and community.  All of the big and little sisters attended along with their families and close friends. Staff from the girl’s school, Anna Julia Cooper Episcopal School, came -- along with mentors and program supporters from years past. Together we all celebrated the amazing experiences and relationships formed during the big and little sisters time at SOHO this year.
 

We had the celebration in our Dominion Room her at VisArts.  The walls showed off the girls photography from their sessions with artist and instructor, Liana.  A table near the front was covered with framed photos of big and little sister pairs – each person was able to walk away with a photo to take home.  Flowers were on each table along with games. The girls were especially excited to see their “I am” word bubbles in the back of the room above their take-home gifts (filled with journals and fun art supplies).

The room filled up and dinner began.  Thanks to We Cook Caterers for cooking such wonderful food. We had a family-style barbeque dinner followed by a potluck dessert with dishes brought in by mentors and their families.Then, it was time for the ceremony itself.

Lead teacher Tesni Stephen got up in front of the crowd and introduced a few folks to speak: Mike Maruca from AJCES and Jordan Roeder from VisArts. Mike talked about the program and how meaningful it has been for his students while Jordan talked abouts ome of the fun changes we were able to make happen this year in SOHO. Tesni then took over and began thanking all of those folks who were important to us this year: guest artists, VisArts gallery director Caroline Wright, Bounce’s Ann Deaton and so many more.

Then it was time for each big and little sisters to speak.  One by one, each big sisters was called up the front.  As they came up, Tesni read off words that their little sister had used to describe them – things like funny, sweet, kind, smart, understanding.  Each big sisters was given the chance to say something about their experience and took a flower from Jordan and Liana. Meanwhile, little sisters pateintly listened…but cheered loudly at every name being called.

 

When all the mentors stood in front of the crowd, it was the little sisters turn.  They too heard words that their big sister had used to describe them, received a flower, and had a chance to speak.  There were a lot of smiles and a lot of tears. A final thank you, followed by a bow and applause finished the ceremony.  Afterwards, everyone munched on dessert and watched the slideshow Tesni had created especially for this night.  The video shows all of what we’ve accomplished this year at SOHO, photos of each pair, projects we completed, people we met and places we went. There were a lot of laughs, claps and tears throughout. 

After the video, some of our guests made their goodbyes.  The big and little sisters along with SOHO teachers and staff stayed behind to do the final closing circle. Everyone crossed arms and linked hands and said one last thing that they were thankful for during their time at SOHO.  The night finished with one last cheer for SOHO along with a lot of hugs and high fives and see-you-soon’s.

Many of our big and little sisters will stay in touch long beyond the ends of the program.  We’ll keep you updated on things that big and little sisters do over the summer!

Thanks to Plaza for helping us make our gift bags possible!

SOHO Room Makeovers

We are just a few days away from our closing ceremony!  Makeovers went amazingly this year.  We had some true transformations and amazing teamwork between big sisters, little sisters and their families and friends. 

Over the past two weekends big sisters with the help of SOHO staff made over 10 rooms for our SOHO girls. The rooms were filled with the artwork created over the course of their entire time at SOHO: like self-portraits, curtains, pillows and blankets. Big sisters were also given a budget to purchase things for the rooms; both functional things they might need as well as decorative things mirrors, pictures, rugs and lamps. 

By the end, each big and little sister had worked together to truly a calming, inspiring and beautiful space for each girl.  Some pairs created reading areas, places to do homework, places to hang artwork and photos, places to dream, places to highlight memories and remind themselves of their goals.

Some rooms had a lot of help from neighbors, family of the girls and the women, and even the big sisters' own community members. 

Here are a few more highlights for you:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last SOHO Night: Letters, Dancing and the Radical Jewelry Makeover

Last Thursday was an amazing and fun end to our program nights! Now we just have one week of makeovers and the final Closing Ceremony where family, friends, and everyone connected to the SOHO program get together and celebrate a great year.

We started off with our last Girl Talk with everyone in the same room.  A reporter and photographer from Richmond Magazine came to observe and interview which got everyone pretty excited. We started off by taking our year-end survey. After, we took out our handmade books for the last time to do some brainstorming for a thoughtful thank you note to our big or little sisters. Our prompts included: what are three of your sister's best qualities, talk about a story or moment that you remember from SOHO, and what do you wish for them in the future? After brainstorming, everyone wrote this into a letter, put it in an envelope and gave them to Tesni.

Girl Talk involved a lot of writing, so the group broke out and listened to our collaborative SOHO 2013-14 mix for the first time while playing a game. The game started by everyone dancing together (or walking around if you didn't feel like dancing) and then stopping when the music stopped. When the music stopped, you would find a partner - who was usually closest to where you ended up, and tell answers a question that Tesni said out loud.  Once each group had time to share, Tesni turned on a new song and everyone started dancing again. Questions included: what is the best quality of your sister, what will you miss about SOHO, who is a woman that you look up to and why, what was your most embarrassing moment, give your partner a high five, or show your best dance move. Everyone was dancing and being silly and really getting into the game.  There was so much excitement when each new song started up. One song was particularly hilarious. One of the girls loves professional wrestling so one of the songs on the mix is her favorite wrestler's theme song. She was gone that day at SOHO, but all of the ladies got really into the song and posed like wrestlers. Our dance party turned into snack (a lot of girls danced while they ate) where the reporter was able to sit with a few girls and talk to them and their big sisters about SOHO.

After snack, we went to down to the gallery to have a tour from our Gallery Director, Caroline. She gave us a tour in the fall, too - remember screen-printing? The girls remembered her and that she had her a baby since the last time they saw her! She showed us pictures and the girls loved it. The gallery exhibition was called "Tied" and was by local Richmond artist Susie Ganch. The exhibition included the artists sculptural pieces and showcased a project called the "Radical Jewelry Makeover".

Susie is part of the Ethical Metalsmiths Collective who try to shed light on the ethical use of metals by jewelers as well as highlight our "waste culture" of disposable jewelry and clothing. The Radical Jewelry Makeover takes donations of broken or unwanted jewelry and then has local and national artists recreate these into beautiful pieces of functioning jewelry again. The end products are amazing and all of them are for sale. Most of the money goes back into the project and to the Ethical Metalsmiths.  This was an interesting thing for the girls and women to see and learn about because we are definitely effected by todays cheap throw away fashions. It made the girls think about where things come from and where they will go once we are done with them.

After our inspiring gallery tour, we went into our fiber studio. Under the direction of local artist and the Radical Jewelry Makeover's project manager Maggie Smith, we created our own pieces of art jewelry from donated materials. Everyone loved looking through all of the bins of old jewelry and picking out objects that inspired them.

Once they had chosen their pieces to work with, Maggie showed us how to create a base shape out of felt, put in eyelets to hang it from, and sew on the objects we picked out.  There was no right or wrong answer with this project. It was all about trying to create something beautiful and discover ways to make it work for you.

Maggie also talked about cohesive designing, and creating a theme or other unifying factor to make everything look good next to each other  The girls loved it!

Our last closing circle was wonderful and all of the big sisters waved the little sisters goodbye!

 

Our first round of makeovers happened last weekend, and 5 more are happening this weekend!  We'll have an amazing round of updates next week before our Closing Ceremony!