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Volleyball in the Community

February 2, 2012

This past week, a group of 14 students and Peter Goff went to several different locations to teach people to play volleyball. Each day, we headed down to Middlebury to work with the kids of Bridge School. At Bridge School, we taught a group of about 10 kids, ranging from 5 year-olds to 12 year-olds, a different skill each day. Monday was passing, Tuesday was setting, Wednesday was hitting and serving, and Thursday and Friday were scrimmaging. Although it wasn’t quite D1 volleyball, the Bridge School kids picked up on things fairly quickly and we all had a lot of fun. We hope that we will be seeing them in years to come as VCS students!

After Bridge School, we drove back up to Burlington to work with the kids at King Street Youth Center. This Encounter Week had been there a few times before, so we saw several familiar faces. We had two different groups while we were there; one Monday and Tuesday, and another Wednesday and Thursday. We sped through the skills each day, and were able to successfully scrimmage with the kids at the end of each group’s time.

In the evenings, we worked with an older age group. Tuesday night, Mikhal, Chloe, Pete, and I worked with a group of adults from Burlington Parks and Rec. We were expecting a group of about 30 adults who knew nothing about volleyball. Instead, a group of about 15 adults who could play fairly well attended. We sped through the basic skills, and were able to scrimmage at the end.

Wednesday night, Thursday night, and Friday afternoon, we worked with a group of high school students from Burlington High School. Wednesday and Thursday, we went through the skills, each VCS student paired with a Burlington High School student. At the end of each night, we did a little scrimmaging. Friday afternoon, we did little with the skills, and did mostly scrimmaging. At the end, we did a real-life game situation of Burlington High School versus VCS, with VCS barely pulling through with a final score of 25-23. Hopefully we’ll have a team from Burlington High School in the near future!

Thanks to Pete for organizing everything, and thanks to all the VCS students who put all the time and effort into making this a great week.

Posted by VCS Student Leader, Leslie Gadway

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