Hooray for soccer!

We are now officially in our 6th season of the South Franklin Soccer League! Our first set of games was last Saturday (August 20). Games were going on at The Boulders and Franklin Elementary in Provo from 9am-1pm.

After two scrimmage days for youth to come sign up we currently have 109 kids playing in the program. There is still space to register but time is running out. Last day to register is August 27th. You can register by going to Centro Hispano (817 South 200 West Provo) or United Way (148 North 100 West Provo) and asking for a form. Any children from ages 5-18 can sign up and remember it's free!

Every weekend we look forward to a successful game day. Come join us and see what all the fun is about!

If you have any soccer experience, we are looking for referees to help during games on Saturdays. Please contact us if you're interested.

Boulders Apartments Pool Party

This afternoon Boulders Apartments hosted a pool party from 2-4 p.m.! Hopefully you had the good fortune of attending and enjoying the free sack lunch distributed by Boulders management, housekeeping and maintenance staff. Yum!

 

Representatives from different community organizations also attended in order to share information about their activities with party attendees. Utah Valley University's office of School, College & University Partnership signed up youth K-12 for free tutoring for the coming school year. Sign-ups were also available for the South Franklin Soccer League.

Representatives from the Provo Circles Initiative also came to share information about Circles and sign people up. As you can see, in South Franklin we're all about getting involved together and sharing. If you want any more information on any of these programs that were represented at the party, contact us!

We at South Franklin Community Center wish to thank the Boulders Apartments again (and again and again) for their generous donation of a space to use to gather as neighbors. Thanks for the smiles and the genuine care of the office staff, management, and maintenance crew, who are always hard at work to make our homes a safe and happy place to live!

Teen Adventures

Becca, an AmeriCorps member with United Way of Utah County, has spent almost 300 hours at South Franklin Community Center this summer running Open Hours, refereeing soccer games, and putting together activities for the neighborhood youth. She wanted to share a few thoughts and memories from her interactions with the teenagers.

I have a blast when the teens come to soccer, girls’ night or whatever activity we may be doing at the time.  Although we’ve only had a few teens show up to soccer, it’s to still fun to play Meta el Gol and just get to know each other better.  Girls’ night was really fun!  I brought my fingernail polish that changes color in the sun and we had a blast watching it work.  

 

At the Bonfire Night we had tons of fun, but it wasn’t the fun I was expecting:  We drove up to South Fork Park just to find out that no open fires were allowed, so we played games the whole night!  We played Dynamite, which is played with a Nerf football, practically the whole time! After awhile another group cleared the field to play Ultimate Frisbee and they told us we could play with them if we wanted to.  We decided to go with it!  Those people were a blast to play with!  Then when it started to get dark we played some soccer with another group of people.  I’d say we made the best night we could without a bonfire.  

I have fun hanging out with the teens and so do the other AmeriCorps volunteers like Lindsey and Dallin.  I hope the teens have had as much fun as I have, and more.  I wish them the best in their life goals and I know they can reach them.

Day Camp: A Message from Noelle

Noelle Olivete is an AmeriCorps VISTA Summer Associate with United Way of Utah County and served as director of the South Franklin Community Center's Summer Day Camp for 2011.

There were seven weeks of camp…and it was questionable if I would survive those weeks! Looking back, I have to say that camp was a success! As each week passed, I learned so much about what activities to do and what worked best for the entire group. 

My favorite part of camp was getting to know each child on a personal level. In addition, being able to improve and teach them new skills was really rewarding. Whether it be on field trips, at the community garden, or just at the community center, I felt that it was important to focus on having a goal for them to reach. Some of the goals included giving the group challenges, teambuilding activities, developing the feeling of self-accomplishment, exploring new ideas and concepts, doing service, and so on. I have to say that preparing these activities presented a challenge for me but I would not trade this experience for anything! To see the facial expression of each child enjoying themselves during an activity or thinking things through during a challenge makes my job so fulfilling.

During these seven weeks, I know that I have gained so much insight as I interacted with each child; I have learned so much from them.  I hope that they were able to have a good experience during camp and that they have gained something from coming. I love that I was able to be small part of their lives! I hope that by working with them as well as our amazing volunteers, that together we have instilled in them to keep moving forward in life—to make good choices and know that each and every one of them has so much potential.

It is my hope that the South Franklin Community Center's Summer Day Camp keeps improving as the years go by. I hope that it will continue to impact and unite the families within the community.