Middle school students won’t forget the value of college over the summer.
GEAR UP N.C. (Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs), a college awareness initiative with a chapter in Lenoir County, hosted a two-week Summer Enrichment Program Camp at Kinston High School, which ends today. Rising seventh and eighth graders presented projects in aerodynamics, theater arts and crime-scene investigation Thursday, displaying potential career choices for the youth.
“Early exposure to college sets (students) in the college-bound mindset,” said Jeannine Haigler, local GEAR UP N.C. student coordinator. “We live in an area that is very rural. There’s a lot of that old mindset that still lives here … and we’re trying to change that by exposing them. These things that we did today show them different careers.”
Seventy-five students participated over the enrichment camp period, which was split into two weeks. GEAR UP serves rising seventh, eighth and 12th grade students. There wasn’t a strong enough senior interest to host high school students, Haigler said.
“(The Summer Enrichment Program Camp) is just a continuation of what we had been doing all year long with getting kids into the college mindset and exposing them to things that they’d probably not been exposed to previously,” she said.
While children launched bottle rockets, solved an iPod theft crime and wrote mini-plays, some parents were in attendance.
Jenna Gooding, the mother of the bottle rocket champion Makayla Simmons, 13, said the program was her daughter’s first year of summer camp.
“She loves it,” Gooding said. “Anything having to do with school, she loves it. She’s fantastic. To be 13-years-old and to be interested in something like this instead of running in the streets, I think it’s good. ... It keeps them busy over the summer, at least for a week.”
During testimonies, some students expressed interest in a longer-running camp next year.
“Some ideas I think that should be important next time would be making sure that we go longer,” said Frink Middle School student Josh Davis, 13. “What I liked about GEAR UP was everything about it. The things I liked the most about bottle rocket was the materials. In CSI, I liked that we learned about DNA.”
Throughout the school year, GEAR UP took students to tour area businesses and colleges. The summer enrichment was designed around the visits. For instance, the youth explored the Theatre Arts Department at ECU, which influenced the mini-play portion of the camp.
Altimisha Little, a 13-year-old Frink Middle School student, has a vested interest in performance arts.
“The thing I liked the most was the acting class,” she said of her camp experience. “(Something important I learned) is that when you act, you have to move and get into it instead of sitting there and being dull. It gives you a chance to express yourself.”
The plays were the last prong of projects Thursday, presented in Kinston High’s cafeteria.
GEAR UP will expand its service to a different cohort each year, as the initiative tracks its students into their first year of college. Some recently graduated seniors appeared during the camp for workshops, otherwise, it was completely populated by Lenoir County middle school students.
“They are loving it,” Haigler said of student reaction.
Jessika Morgan can be reached at 252-559-1078 and Jessika.Morgan@Kinston.com. Follow her on Twitter @JessikaMorgan.