SOHO's Opening Ceremony!

We held our official SOHO opening ceremony on October 23^rd! All the women arrived early with potluck snacks to share with the women and girls.

All of our "little sisters" arrived by bus from AJCES.  The mentors were all waiting upstairs in our community space and even formed a high-five tunnel to greet them all! The beginning of the meeting was socializing and  getting to know one another over snacks.   Then everyone went on a tour of the building and learned about all the different studios and what happens in them. 

The girls and mentors went on group scavenger hunts to see how well they remembered what they learned in the tour...and to just have a little fun.  The last clue led them to the beautifully decorated fibers studio.  Once in, girls and women were greeted with a circle of chairs, candles, twinkle lights and a big sign saying "Gratitude".  On each chair was a gift bag with each person's name on it and a flower.  In each bag was a card with the word taht their match used to describe themselves in their interview on one side and the word their match used to describe themselves at their interview. Everyone opened their bags and all stop up and found their match. There were a lot of great moments ("I'm looking for somebody 'Awesome!'") and a lot of hugging and high-fiving.

Afterwards, each pair had their picture taken together. The pairs also used their time to decorate a hula hoop together and had a hula hoop contest! Big and little sisters also spent some time writing  letters to themselves about what they were looking forward to in the program. During Closing Circle everyone sat together in a circle, holding hands.  Each person expressed what they were thankful for with the group. Then, when SOHO ended, everyone took photos together and big sisters waved goodbye to the girls as they got on the bus! So excited about this first meeting and looking forward to the rest of the year!