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ESCAPE to the summer!

A final look at the year in our club…

We’ve wrapped up our 17th year of the ESCAPE Club, and are headed into the summer.  Yet again, we are grateful for the students who participated, and the relationships and experiences that we shared.  As well, we are grateful for so many teachers and volunteers who drive the kids to these fantastic destinations. Finally, for each of you, and your love, words of encouragement, prayer, finances, and support.

One of our proudest accomplishments this year was creating and distributing a memory book to each of the students and chaperones at the end of the year.  The booklet has a spread for each of our nine trips, which includes directions to, information about, and pictures from each of our destinations.  There’s even room for autographs, and it was fun to see our kids clutching them at the last meeting, laughing over the memories, and signing each others’ books.

We’ll see what developments, if any, come in our careers this summer and into the coming school year, and we’ll have to navigate an unusually high amount of teacher turnover at DeJean.  But for now, we’ll hope to be back for another year of ESCAPE Club at DeJean in the fall.

Hope you’ll take a look at the video below that shows each of the trips and all of the faces from the year.  Have a great summer, and we’ll hope to see each one of you soon!

The end of the year video. Come and see how far we went.
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ESCAPE to the Ice 2017

One final trip to Oakland Ice Center and Cerrito Vista Park…

If it feels like you just heard from me, it’s true.  You did.  We had a super quick turnaround after our camping trip in Yosemite, and scrambled to get our last trip in.  The school year is ending much earlier than it used to!

We snuck out of Richmond early, as it was a short day at school, and went down to the Oakland Ice Center.  This is a trip that many of the kids look forward to all year.  For most of them, ice skating is yet another brand new experience.  Most kids cling to the walls at the start.  But for those brave and confident enough to venture out, they learn quickly how to move on the ice.  I wish we had more time to prep in the classroom, or teach them before we go in, but that’s just not how it works out.

After a couple hours on the ice, kids are tired and hungry and ready to go.  We battled rush hour traffic, and headed back north to Cerrito Vista Park.  There, we enjoyed a little pizza supper, played catch with the softball, frisbee, and football, and took over the play structure.  It was a nice time, and a reminder that it’s just fun to be together, no matter how far from home we are.

We’ll be meeting one more time next week to say goodbye, and so you’ll hear from us one more time as well.  Enjoy the photos here, and check out the video below if you have an extra minute or two.

Last trip of the year!