The end of week three! We are halfway through Freedom School 2022 and writing that feels so bittersweet. This week Freedom School was cut a day short because of the long weekend. Though I enjoyed the weekend, I missed Freedom School. Once back in the office we got straight to work preparing for next week’s big Jubilee celebration. Jubilee is basically a huge summer pep rally to celebrate summer learning. Each site gets to show their site pride through their own Cheers and Chants. I oversaw putting the slide deck together which was fun because I got to be creative with colors, shapes, and fonts. I am proud of it because it shows the fun of Freedom School. We also have a Jubilee banner that I am working on with Leah, our Scholars and Families Manager. We have come up with some great ideas that will make the banner exciting for the scholars. Jubilee will be such a great experience: I can feel it! It has become the event that I am looking forward to the most! As July 15^th gets closer, my anticipation is rising.

This week our focus was to shout out some of our Enrichment and Site Partners. By doing this, I was able to learn more about what our scholars do on a day-to-day basis during our enrichment providers programming. My favorite was the Hornets Book Bus with Hugo the Hornet. Though I was not physically there, I loved seeing the pictures because the scholars looked so engaged while getting brand new books to take home.

I am starting to see excitement develop in our scholars as the weeks go on. It is the most rewarding feeling. Whenever I gather content from an enrichment activity or Harambee, I am seeing more and more scholars wanting to be involved. My favorite experience is seeing some of the scholars that were shyer on the first week of Freedom School open up to their classmates, SLI’s, and even to me. I love hearing, “Hey Ms. Jada,” when I walking into a site. Some of the scholars just refer to me as ‘the lady who takes the pictures’ and I’m okay with that too ha-ha. Next week will be busier, I’m sure, but honestly I ready for it!