Archive for What We Do

VAST Activities: Halloween

On Friday, October 31st, VAST Scholars had the opportunity to participate in several festive activities. Some scholars participated in drama and chess, and others carved pumpkins outside with their mentors. VAST also hosted special guests from Vassar UNICEF. The UNICEF members talked with scholars about UNICEF’s work with children, and passed out Trick or Treat […]

Welcome to VAST!

Welcome to another semester of VAST! We are so excited to work with new and returning scholars and mentors this fall. To start off the semester, VAST held a Fall Field Day event, which included snacks and games. The scholars and mentors had tons of fun partaking in fall festivities and getting to know each […]

VAST Activities: Squash and Volleyball

On 10/10/14, the VAST Scholars came to Kenyon Hall at Vassar College to play volleyball and squash. The scholars were split into two groups, with girls playing squash and boys playing volleyball. Thanks to the Vassar coaches and players of the squash and volleyball teams for teaching and playing with our scholars!

Last Day of VAST (Spring 2014)

Sadly, the last day of the VAST program occurred on May 5. The VAST school year ends early because May 5 is the last day of classes for our Vassar student mentors. To celebrate our last day, we had an 8th grade graduation ceremony at Poughkeepsie Middle School. At the end of our last day, […]

Vassar Spring Break (Spring 2014)

VAST is on break right now as the Vassar students are on their 2-week spring vacation. The program will start back up again on Monday, March 24. Last Monday before our vacation started, our scholars finished their homework early and got to play basketball in the school gym for the last half hour of VAST. […]

VAST Career Night

On Wednesday February 26, VAST scholars and families were invited to Vassar College to attend a Career Night panel. The panel featured community members from various professional careers, including Teaching, Art/Graphic Design, Construction, Restaurant Management, and IBM Engineering. Our panelists answered questions such as: -What is your job? Describe your typical day at work. -What […]

VAST Activities: Spring Semester 2014

Every Friday at VAST, the scholars rotate to a new activity led by Vassar student mentors. Many of our activities continued from where we left off in the Fall semester, such as Debate, Art, Cooking, and Science. We have one new activity this semester: Improv! One of our mentors teaches fun acting and improvisation games […]

VAST Activities: Olympics

Friday, February 7 was the first day of VAST’s spring semester. We were scheduled to start on Monday, February 3, but snow storms in Poughkeepsie delayed us. To celebrate the first day, which was the same day as the Opening Ceremony for the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, VAST held our own version of the Olympic […]

Achieving High Honors

Poughkeepsie Middle School has released the Honor Roll list for first quarter! Most of our scholars made the honor roll this quarter. That is a huge achievement and a great way to start off the school year. Check out the chart below to see how many of our students are listed on the honor roll. […]

Last Day of VAST (Fall 2013)

Sadly, our last day for the semester was Wednesday December 11. Instead of normal tutoring, we had a party day to celebrate everything we’ve done together. Our mentors and scholars had so much fun spending time together before the Vassar tutors left for their winter vacation. Check out the different activities we had available for […]

VAST Activities: Trip to Vassar

The last day of VAST for the semester was Friday, December 6. To celebrate all of our accomplishments so far, VAST went on a field trip to Vassar College. The VAST students are always excited to go on a trip to Vassar and see something new. For this field trip, we saw two different parts […]

VAST Appreciations

Before Thanksgiving break, VAST took some time to think about how we can thank each other and ourselves for all the hard work we have done. Scholars and mentors traced their hands and wrote a “THANK YOU” message to put on the poster below. They could choose to either thank someone else in the program […]

Poughkeepsie Middle School and Vassar College working together!