Monday, I went to the Morgantown Mountaineer Boys & Girls Club to talk to the kids about overcoming adversity. This was my first Boys & Girls Club appearance of the year and I was so excited to see the kids and hear about what they did that day in school.
When I came in, the students were working on Power Hour (Power Hour is one hour Monday-Thursday where all members work on homework, study, or get tutored) so I just sat quietly and waited until everyone had finished their homework. There was a little girl that sat down by me on the couch and had a Barbie in her hand. I, jokingly, asked if her Barbie's name was Fred and she looked at me and said "Uhm, no, her name is Barbie!" I laughed just because of the seriousness, but then realized that kids have just as much ability to change their attitude and feelings as adults do:)
Power Hour was soon over so I was able to start my presentation. All of the kids gathered in the "couch room" and listened to the presentation while also asking questions. Early in the presentation I asked everyone what they thought a BAD CHOICE might be? One little girl responded, "Drugs." I thought "Yes, they are getting it quick." Next student responded, "Drinking." Strike two. Then....it got interesting. A little boy raised his hand and she said "Getting drunk on green tea!" We all laughed, but it wasn't as good as the ones to follow. The girl with the barbie said "Letting a six year old drive a car." I just had to laugh because I had YET to get that answer....but in actuality it was a great BAD CHOICE. And then the one to top it off was this little eight year old boy who started in on a whole story. "How about carrying a knife in your pocket to school, setting off the metal detectors, then running away when you got caught. Pulling the fire and water alarms and going to the local convenient store and stealing every Little Debbie cake they had there." The room erupted, as did I!
I learned then a very valuable lesson. When asking a question, be prepared for ANY answer! After laughing we all diverted and commented to the eight year old that he was in fact VERY RIGHT, those all would be bad choices and then went on to the rest of the presentation which went very well.
As I have mentioned before, I ALWAYS do a question and answer session after each school presentation. You get the usual questions of, "Where do you live," "How old are you," "Do you have any pets,", etc. but today there was a little boy that asked, "If there was a Mr. WV?" I jokingly said, "My boyfriend thinks he is Mr. WV, but I am not so sure about him. So, would you like to be my boyfriend for the day and reign as Mr. WV?" He said, "Uhm, no. That would be quite alright. I don't like playing with girls." AGAIN, the room erupted and I acted like I was crying. I said "You just threw me under the bus!" He replied, "Yes, I wish I could do that to my sister" and pointed to where she was.
After everything was asked and answered, I passed out my autograph cards to each student in the room. Mind you, that day I choose to wear my hair naturally curly and it has been cut since my picture was taken back earlier in my year. Once everyone had received one, the kids started looking at me funny and then back at the picture. In various different forms, they all said "This isn't you. You don't even look like this girl. You came in here and lied to us saying you were Miss WV!" I just had to laugh because they were right...I really didn't look like her, but after being ask to smile while the picture was neck to my face, they all agreed it was me:)
This was one of the most fun appearances yet and I thoroughly enjoyed the company of the Mountaineer Boys & Girls Club.
No comments:
Post a Comment