An adrenaline filled Spring and looking forward to the end of the school year!
April was quite a busy month for us here at Elevate Youth! We felt so lucky to spend the majority of the month outside with our students. We spent each after school enrichment session outside practicing our mountain biking skills and even got to explore coastal Massachusetts during April Break!
Throughout the month of April, we helped our students practice and build up their mountain biking skills to prepare them for the trip to Stony Brook Reservation at the end of the month. During the first week, we spent each day at the schools or a nearby park getting used to being on the bikes for the first time. We practiced riding the bikes up and down hills, riding them off the pavement (over rocks, grass, and various terrain), changing gears, and using our brakes! The next 2 weeks were spent practicing on trails and paved paths at Franklin Park.
10 of our students learned how to ride a bike for the first time! They were determined, confident, patient, and brave as they got on the bikes for the first time with the goal of being able to ride it on their own by the end of the month. We are so proud of all of our students but especially our first time bike riders who did such a great job learning a brand new skill.
We ended our month with a week of biking trips at Stony Brook Reservation. With each group, we completed a 2 mile paved loop around the park, then would often split into smaller groups based on needs and wants of students. While some of our students who were still learning chose to practice on small hills at the start of the trail, others chose to stay on the paved loop and practice going uphill as well as controlling their bikes on downhills. Others chose a more challenging route that took them off road. Our youth were brave and excited as they rode over rocks, roots, dirt, and mud up and down hills on the trails in the woods. We would like to thank all of our volunteers who came out to help on our biking trips, you gave our youth an experience they will never forget! We would also like to give a huge shoutout and thank you to Matthew Tschiegg, who volunteered with us everyday for all of our weeks at Franklin Park to teach our students everything he knows about mountain biking. He not only donated his time, but also his knowledge by putting together trail maps and notes for our volunteers and leaders to refer to for our biking trips. We are beyond grateful for his efforts and look forward to more mountain biking for our youth in the future!
During the middle of the month, we took a break from mountain biking for April Break. We held trips for Harlem Lacrosse, Boys and Girls Club of Dorchester, West End House, and Sibling Connections to Worlds End in Hingham and Cape Cod National Seashore. We brought many pairs of Binoculars as well as books to identify and look for different shore birds as we hiked along the coast. We spotted many different types of birds, including herons, plovers, gulls, ducks, and robins to name a few. Our youth were also excited to find some creatures under rocks along the shore… crabs! Many of our students learned how to safely handle a crab for the first time! They also found oysters, clams, and many beautiful rocks and shells. This week spent exploring the Massachusetts coast was a welcome change of pace and we hope to get back to the ocean with our students soon!
On top of all of our time spent on trips, we also hosted an Earth Day Festival at Franklin Park which was set up by our wonderful Youth Leaders and Outdoor Instructor, Waddy! Many of our friends from the Elevate Youth community gathered at Franklin Park to participate in earth friendly activities and learn more about how we can support a healthy planet. We want to thank our wonderful volunteers from Patagonia for running a successful arts and crafts station where attendees got to do activities such as vegetable tie dying, pot painting, and seed planting. We would also like to thank Public Lands for letting us borrow their OONI outdoor pizza ovens so we were able to provide free pizza to everyone who attended! On top of that, our friends from Stio Boston also attended and will be giving away a coat to one lucky raffle winner from the day! We were able to bring so many wonderful folks into our celebration of this wonderful planet we all call home!
As we head into May, we are anticipating some fun field trips for the end of the year including fishing and Thompson Island trips. We will also be preparing for Elevate Youth Summer Camp, where students from our existing cohorts will have the opportunity to participate in a week-long summer program! We want to once again thank all of our wonderful volunteers, partners, donors, and sponsors for all you do to support our mission! As the flowers bloom and we look forward to a full summer, we are grateful for all the memories we have created this past month and all the experiences we have to look forward to!