ACE Family Fun Night

Korrin B.

March 14, 2010 - 11:00 PM

This is my fourth year working in the ACE after school program with the Eugene School District 4j. I first found this job when I was looking for a work-study position my freshman year. That year, I was placed as a work-study tutor at Meadowlark Elementary. Since then, my position within the program has grown and I have been hired through both the Eugene School District 4j, as well as through the City of Eugene Recreation Division. This term, I have moved to a new school, Adams Elementary. It has been an adjustment getting used to a new set of kids and some new staff, but it has been overall a lot of fun and I think I finally felt settled this past Thursday at our big Family Fun Night.

There are about four family nights throughout the year in the ACE program. These are used to highlight what we've been doing in the program and to encourage parents to find fun ways to interact more with their kids. Our theme for this family night was Game Show Night. We had kids come up in groups onto the stage in the cafeteria for different games. Some included pie eating contests, wrapping up participants in toilet paper the fastest, a family feud style game, and more. In between games, we would have the kids come up and tell jokes or put on a performance. I have been teaching a puppet making class for the past four weeks, so I had a group from my class come up and perform their puppet show. It was very cute. They all had designed their own sock puppets, created their own stage, and wrote their own script. Our students are so talented!

I think my favorite part of the night was an impromptu sing-a-long put on by myself and one other staff member. We needed some way to keep the kids engaged for a while during set up for the night. They were getting very antsy, so another staff member asked me if I knew any songs we could sing. I quickly thought back fondly to my days at Camp ABC with the Fresh Air Fund and began singing a repeat after me song as loudly and enthusiastically as I could. This song was followed by two others. The kids were totally into it and it was a lot of fun. I was sweating and singing and dancing and completely making a fool out of myself. That's what this job is all about, I suppose.

Overall, it was a great night of community building. I went out for some dinner and conversation with some of my coworkers afterwards. We did some great bonding that night. Work really isn't such a bad thing when you can truly enjoy what you're doing and whom you're doing it with. I'm glad I found this job my freshman year, as it has lead to many more opportunities for me.