Hello, and welcome back to my five loyal readers!

This week is significant to me because I am starting to feel confident with the names of the campers. Granted, it’s only been about eight days since I met them, but I feel as though we’re starting to get to the point where it’s offensive to the kids if I don’t know their name by now—especially if I’m talking with them daily. I am most familiar with the smaller nuggets save for the few middle schoolers who deem me cool enough to engage. Still! I’m making progress and it feels great.

Speaking of the younger kids of the camp, I spent my Monday supervising half of our “pod” (youngest age group) during a field trip to NetJets, a private business jet charter and aircraft management company. Apparently HFF and NetJets have an ongoing relationship which culminated in this center-wide visit; in my own words, the mission of the trip was to engage young people in cool things. And it was certainly cool!!

We made rounds to various stations that taught the kids about the anatomy of a plane, demonstrated a flying simulation, and explained multiple safety procedures via tours of safety vehicles to name a few. Though, the highlights of the stations, according to my group, were the meet and greet with the service dogs and the tour of one of NetJet’s private (18 million dollar!) plane.

Yes, the material items and information was neat. Even more neat, in my opinion, was the  encouragement and positive communication I heard between NetJet staff and our kids. One of the stations involved teaching campers the motions of the ground safety controller. You know, the one who guides the pilot to the correct strip. I heard comments like, “you’re doing such a great job. After you graduate, come back and visit me and we’ll see about getting you a job here.” Or, “would you like to fly a plane like this one day? It takes a lot of school, but it’s worth it” from the pilots who volunteered their time.

My hope is that experiences like this stick with the kids to foster academic and professional interests that will prompt motivation to graduate from high school, firstly, and then a form of higher education, even. Multiple staff members at the Dowd have expressed to me that their work is intentional and daily class activites are about more than just school.

The goal is to teach the kids that they’re smart, capable, interesting people who can achieve big things with the right support: an incredibly invaluable lesson to teach.