Hard at work at the Education Center
Although the sticky, humid weather outside may have led you to believe it was still summer on the last day of August, it was definitely fall inside Volunteers of America’s Education Center. While most of Minnesota was off at the State Fair, eating cheese curds and fried ice cream on a stick, our students were already back to school, hard at work.
Take SALT High School student Joniqua (pictured right) for example, who spent the second day of English class working on her first writing assignment -- recapping the events of her summer break.
It was eerily quiet in the SALT commons area, that is, until first period was over and students started spilling out of classrooms, talking a mile a minute, obviously excited to be back with their old classmates. Many of the students were wearing brand new backpacks, generously donated through our Operation Backpack program.
Despite the heat, many students rode their bikes to school, and as part of a new bike program, they’ll even earn Physical Education credit for it!
Over on the other side of the “Ed Center,” students from our Opportunity High School, an ESL (English as a Second Language)-focused school serving primarily Somali immigrants, were busy catching up and reuniting with old friends.
Downstairs, the highly-motivated students in our Independent Study Program were busy planning and mapping out the first outdoor adventure trip of the school year: a wild rice harvesting expedition in the Boundary Waters.
And outside, the student-planted and maintained community gardens were growing like crazy! A mouth-watering assortment of tomatoes, lettuce, green peppers, onions, and hot peppers were almost ready to be harvested and used in school lunches this fall.
If the first week of school is any indication of how the rest of the year will turn out, it’s shaping up to be a pretty great year over at the Education Center!