Bridges Family a Part of the United Way of Greenville Campaign

Bridges student, Jamie Williams and her family are part of the 2008 United Way of Greenville Campaign! Each year, a select number of individuals or families are selected to serve as spokespeople for the United Way. In addition to being a part of Bridges to a Brighter Future, Jamie and her family received assistance from the Greenville Area Inter-Faith Hospitality Network, also known as GAIHN and Jamie also participates in another United Way funded program through the Phyllis Wheatly Community Center. Jamie is a wonderful young woman! She is a student at J.L. Mann High School and we are very proud of her!

Bridges Students Go to Adventure Camp!

Through a partnership with Clemson University's Youth Learning Institute (YLI) and the Cliff's Communities, 12 Bridges students received the opportunity of a lifetime to participate in a ten day Adventure Camp! In the late Winter, YLI approached Bridges to continue a partnership already established with The Cliff's Communities to utilize Pinnacle Falls Camp, a beautiful mountain camp near Rocky Bottom, SC. The partnership included scheduling an Adventure Camp solely for Bridges students and providing team building for the Bridges counselors.

One day after the four-week Bridges program ended, I drove the lucky group of 12 students up to Pinnacle Falls camp. The group was familiar with Pinnacle Falls, as this is the location of our highly regarded Fourth of July celebration. The students really did not know what they were getting into. Being a person who spends time in the outdoors, I don't know if I would have even committed to spending seven days in the woods! However, I knew that they would be able to overcome any challenge they would encounter! They are Bridges students!

After seven days, I went back to get the students and they ran to the van they were so excited to see me! They were even more excited to tell me about the life-changing experience they received through Adventure Camp! Once they left Pinnacle Falls after a day of training, they mountain biked, canoed, and hiked for seven days! When asked what part they liked the most, they said, "all of it." The YLI staff was exceptional! They took time and care to teach, lead, and nurture our Bridges students through the experience. I was most impressed when the students told me that they repelled down a waterfall! How cool is that?

This opportunity was made possible by YLI providing a 1/2 scholarship for each student and generous donors providing support through Bridges to a Brighter Future. They wonderful staff at Clemson's YLI have issued a press release recently published online through The Greenville News. We hope to continue this partnership next year.

In addition, we are working toward expanding post-Bridges opportunities for our wonderful students. We have a partnership with Furman's Science Department through a Howard Hughes grant to provide paid research opportunities next summer to Bridges students (more to come on this). We also hope to implement an entrepreneurial expansion next summer as well.

A Little Late...But Still Acceptable

Well, a lot has happened since the last update! There was a dance, a car wash, talent show, field day, trip to Myrtle Beach, the Banquet and so much more...

Although the students are home now, we'll still update you on what happened during the last two weeks of Bridges.

Starting with the CAR WASH

On Saturday, July 5, the three classes had three separate car washes. The car washes lasted for only a few hours, but in such a short amount of time, the Mus, Lambdas, and Kappas raised well over $2000, with the Kappas winning the CAR WASH CHAMPIONSHIP by raising a new Bridges high of a little over $1000!

After the CAR WASH was THE DANCE

The Dance was Hollywood themed and everyone from Demi Moore to Napoleon Dynamite showed up for the event (and we have pictures to prove it!). The annual Bridges Dance was a great hit among the students and counselors...we even found a few teachers enjoying themselves.

Next we will skip to FIELD DAY

Bridges has a lot of annual activities that the students love...take FIELD DAY for instance. Everyone loves pie on the face and running around in circles after a go on the dizzie bats. I mean who doesn't love passing a soaking sponge over your head or the good ol' three legged race? Field day was extremely fun and very entertaining!

What's Bridges without the TALENT SHOW?

BRIDGES HAS TALENT. Every single student, each counselor, every teacher, and even Mrs. Swartz has talent! The talent show was amazing! We had The Interns performed their very own, originally choreographed version of a recent hit. Casey Crisp did a very dramatic interpretive dance routine of the song Landslide. Jarrod Hall and Karina Rodriguez had a somewhat romantic (haha) duet. The Ladies of Distinction and Men of Honor both recited awesome poetry. And not to mention all the EXTREMELY EXCELLENT performances in between...

And the annual TRIP is always much anticipated

The students woke up VERY early for the trip to Myrtle Beach. The day began with a college tour of Coastal Carolina. Later the students went to the beach where they had a blast until the storm came. Oh how it rained... An hour on the bus waiting for it to pass, but hey who says you can't have fun on a bus full of wet and sandy people? Well Bridges always manages to have fun in most UN FUN situations. Each student contributes their share to make Bridges the amazing program it is...And it all paid off with dinner at Golden Coral and their all-you-can-eat-buffet.

The BANQUET is always full of super speeches and lots of tears

Bridges' last night at Furman is dedicated to the graduating class. Everyone looked so nice and the keynote speaker, Gio Gomez, had some very well received advice for the Bridges students. Almost every student got an award during the academic award ceremony. Then the tears came...The Kappas did an amazing thing. Each stood at the podium and presented Mrs. Swartz with a rose, along with a glance at what Bridges and Mrs. Swartz has done to better his or her life. Then they gave Mrs. Swartz a blanket embroidered with "If you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love" by Mother Teresa. Mrs. Swartz then ended with her speech dedicated to the Kappas--WHAT AN AMAZING SPEECH! The Banquet ended with all the students gathered around the front watching the Slideshow and a video for the Kappas, put together by Thomas Dixon.

The next day was DEPARTURE

Although it was sad to see the students go, they have benefited tremendously from this summer.

EACH ONE WILL GO FORTH AND DO GREAT THINGS!!!