Summer camp brings to mind scenes of children canoeing on a lake, weaving friendship bracelets, practicing archery. For a group of middle school children in the Charlottesville area, summer camp has meant something a little different.
“Our vet came, and we put a speculum in the horse’s mouth — that’s a metal thing that holds the mouth open — and the vet puts her hand in to feel teeth, and then she’s like, ‘Do you want to do it?’” Jenny Germorth recounted to The Daily Progress. “This year we had four [campers] touch the tongue.”
Germorth works as the development coordinator at the Virginia Polo Center, a 75-acre training facility just south of Charlottesville for polo players at the University of Virginia and nearby high schools. For the past three summers, the polo center has partnered Starr Hill Pathways, a program by UVa’s Center for Community Partnerships, previously the Equity Center.
Now in its fourth year, Starr Hill Pathways supplies students in the city of Charlottesville and surrounding Albemarle County with opportunities to explore different career paths, all geared toward setting them up for success after high school, whether by enrolling in college or entering the workforce.
At the polo center this year, eight campers were enrolled in the “Vet Tech” pathway. But it was more than just a single vet tech who showed up for the campers.
One day, a farrier came to demonstrate how he cares for the horses’ hooves and fits them for horseshoes. On another day, the seventh graders took turns washing off a couple of the horses in the barn before getting a chance to play around with mallets and polo balls in the center’s indoor polo pitch.
The polo center also collaborates with Louisa County-based Ohana Horse Farm to fill out its offerings. Owner and manager Kim Bryson, a retired mounted police officer, came one day to impart some leadership skills and horse training tips.
“I tried to make an itinerary that shows them all these different pathways. We could just talk about vet tech, but we decided to expand it and show some other careers,” said Germorth, who also brought in a farm manager to speak with the campers. “Maybe there’s a facet of what we’ve talked about that appeals to you, let’s explore that a little bit deeper.”
The vet tech pathway was just one of many pathways campers could choose this summer. Others included “Multimedia” with Light House Studio, “Brain Camp” with the UVa neuroscience department, “Environmental Science” with the Rivanna Conservation Alliance and “Performing Arts” with the Charlottesville Ballet.
“Every summer, those are not necessarily what we offer. It just depends on the community partners that we were able to obtain that year,” Starr Hill Pathways Director Lucy Montalvo told The Daily Progress.
Founded in 2021, Starr Hill Pathways functions as a year-round network of academic support and career opportunities for roughly 260 Charlottesville-area students, starting in seventh grade all the way until high school graduation.
The college and career readiness initiative is available to all, but 80% of its participants hail from families in which the parents either did not attend college or did so outside of the U.S.
The program not only exposes students to various career paths, but also provides them with the tools to navigate and succeed as they manage those paths. During the school year, that takes the form of tutoring, mentoring with students at UVa and Piedmont Virginia Community College and guest lecturers from the local professional and business realm.
“That support really helps make sure that they didn’t miss out on anything, because of lack of knowledge or experience in this world, which is so complicated to navigate the world of college,” said Montalvo. “It’s really complex, and there’s just so much to it.”
At the high school level, Starr Hill Pathways places more of an emphasis on getting students ready for SAT exams, college applications or obtaining an associate’s degree. While the middle school students were discovering whether or not they had what it takes to be a veterinarian, the 11th grade group was on college tours to James Madison University in Harrisonburg and Longwood University in Farmville.
In about a year, that cohort will be the first to graduate from Starr Hill Pathways. After five years in the program, Montalvo is confident those students have the “background knowledge” and resources to succeed wherever their pathway leads to next.
“I’ve seen a lot of growth in our kids,” she said. “The different kids that come up to me and just tell me how much they’ve enjoyed something or they just really want to get into this or that because of the experience that they had — that’s really valuable.”
Source: www.dailyprogress.com