VAST Ice Cream Social

Events Parents Scholars What We Do Published October 8, 2013 at 3:06 pm No Comments

VAST kicked off the school year with an ice cream social event at Vassar College for families to come learn about the program. We were lucky enough to get an ice cream donation from Stewart’s Shops for everyone to enjoy.

Thank you Stewart’s for the delicious ice cream!

We had an incredible turnout- over 25 families came to sign up for VAST! Rachel and Lynn presented an overview of the program, goals for the semester, and changes from last year. Students and parents were on-board with the changes and excited to start the new school year.

We also had two guest speakers come to the event: Jane Parker and Kyle Tam. Jane is the coach of the Vassar College Squash team. On Friday, October 25, she is inviting VAST scholars to come to the Vassar squash courts to attend a workshop led by the Vassar squash team. It will be a fun chance for the middle schoolers to learn a new sport with an intriguing name! Kyle Tam also stopped by the ice cream social. He is a current Vassar College student who graduated from Poughkeepsie High School. When he was in middle school, he participated in a squash outreach program and he still is involved with squash today. He shared his experiences with the VAST scholars and parents so they could understand the importance of getting involved in college sports while you’re in middle school.

If you don’t know what squash is, check out this action-packed video that Jane shared about how squash is played around the world:

The ice cream social was a success and I’m looking forward to working with such an eager, intelligent group of middle school scholars this year. Check out some pictures from the event below!