Saturday Session - April 20, 2013
Yesterday was the Saturday Session for April for the Upward Bound program. The day started off with a very long bus ride because we needed to stop at multiple locations throughout Mercer County to pick up students from all of the schools. Three busses went and the bus that I was on had 28 students total on it along with us volunteers and two Upward Bound employees. My function would be to help chaperone all of the students, there were over 80 students total, so I was glad to be able to help.
Our first stop on the trip was West Virginia State University. Once we arrived, we were a little late, the staff gave us all a quick tour of the campus and explained details about the academics of the school to the students that were with us on the trip. Some of them seemed very interested in the college, they were asking questions about the cost of attendance and specific programs that they hoped to participate in. I think the trip to the college was very beneficial. It was also nice that the day was warm outside!
After the tour of the university, we took the students to the West Virginia State Capitol. We parked in front of the Governor's Mansion and then walked to the capitol. Some of the students picked to go to the cultural center instead of the capitol, but I went with the group that picked the capitol because some of them had never been there and I wanted to see their reaction to it. Since we have such a beautiful capitol, I was not surprised that the students who had never seen it were amazed. They really seemed to enjoy getting to learn about our states history and explore the marble halls of our state capitol.
Finally, to finish off the day, we took the students to the Charleston Town Center Mall and gave them two hours to spend there. Surprisingly, a lot of them had never been their either. I was excited for the students to get to experience some of what our state capitol has to offer, especially for the students who had never been to Charleston before in their lives. Upward Bound is such a great program and it allows students the opportunity to learn, experience culture, and further their educations in a way that they can relate to. I am glad to be a part of their volunteer workers and look forward to the future working with Upward Bound and their amazing students.

















