PupilPrep Summer Bootcamp 2022
By Tasmia Afrin and Emily Wang
PupilPrep has come a long way from its origin of high school students banding together to fight against financial and language barriers for the youth in NYC. Through the journey from a handful of high school students to becoming a welcoming and inclusive community, PupilPrep has become an impactful organization that we are proud to be a part of. We envision a dream of not only mentoring these students but also guiding them toward a journey of more open opportunities and possibilities. It was through this vision that we have come up with an engaging and wondrous idea for our mentees and mentors! We created and organized events and programs throughout the year that allowed students to come together to learn, have fun and develop meaningful relationships with one another.
The summer Mentee Boot Camp was a one-day event where several mentors, the Executive Board, mentees, and their families came together to enjoy different sessions of all kinds of activities. We had different sessions of art with mentors, read-aloud stories, cooking, trivia games, movies, and we even shared our own hobbies. One of my favorite memories of the event was when I cooked spaghetti and meatballs in a live session where the young kids and their parents came together to cook and laugh! It was an amazing experience on both ends. All of the kids and families loved the Boot Camp experience and so we worked hard to create more similar events with a goal of an even more successful turnout. It was really important for us to think of, create, and host events and programs for our students because it made us realize that PupilPrep is not simply just educational but also about life experiences. To see the smiles and joy in the mentees’ faces, especially with the struggles with social interaction in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, was impactful.
We also designed a Journalism Program aimed at our mentors and other high school students in order to help spread the love for writing, journalism, literature, and collaborative skills. Although it was imitating at first to be teaching kids around your age, that quickly faded away as we all got to know each other through the icebreakers. The sessions had a very comfortable atmosphere, building a safe space where everyone could share any stories they wanted to. Through this program, many of the students worked on the lessons we created on sentence structure, poetry, creative writing, essays, blogs, and articles! This program was another success and this made us realize that it is essential to continue with meaningful and engaging events and programs to help our community.
Spring came around the corner and we were back to work with organizing and spreading the news of our new Spring Mentee Boot Camp! We created flyers, sent out emails, and posted about it on our social media! We worked with mentors to create slides and held hour-long meetings to plan, discuss and collaborate with these talented mentors. We truly learned the importance of unity and communication in our team as we worked together with the joyful, curious mentees. In our first meeting, which focused on story-telling, we read The Giving Tree where all the children took turns reading and sharing their own interpretation of kindness and what it means to give to others. They became attuned with each other which facilitated communication and resulted in the discussion persisting longer than expected. Our experience made us realize that these children had so many ideas and thoughts to share that would typically not have been explored in a more traditional classroom environment. We were all excited for the next meeting events where we had a Career Day, Poetry Event, Trivia Bowl, and a Drawing Class where their imaginations ran wild. The students and mentors who helped us host the meetings all were excited and eager to share their own original poems, hold out their drawings, and talk about careers that they dream of.
Together through fun icebreakers, talking about our dreams, and discovering new passions, we all learned the meaning of unity and how powerful it is to express ourselves. We learned that these Boot Camps and programs represent PupilPrep: a community built on trust, mentoring, love, and collaboration. We hope to continue and organize many more events and programs that allow our community to thrive and prosper!
