Talk about taking advantage of summertime! Our 24Seven leaders at the Pelham Campus blew it out of the water with a Life Skills lunch for our 7th-8th grade students.

We had 22 students sign up and come to this daytime event, held separate from our regularly scheduled 24Seven time.

While parents are working hard at home to raise up responsible children, our Students staff wanted to offer an opportunity for students to participate together in practicing a variety of life skills that would help build upon learned skills and foster more responsibility.

Leaders and volunteers were given a topic and asked to own a life skill and prepare a station that would provide a first-hand lesson to our students. The students moved through stations of about 15 minutes each, including household basics, letter writing, time management, mastering conversations, and burger grilling. Leaders were encouraged by the “the broad array of skills that were a huge win for us.”

The first station was gender-specific as they gave babysitting and modesty tips to the girls and tie and shaving lessons to the boys, bringing in our resident expert Donald Spann for the bow tie lessons. Once that was complete, the students were mixed up to complete the rest of the stations.

The students were able to get cleaning tips, laundry 101, and even learn about the shelf life of different food. We also got to share the art of writing a letter with a generation who lives in a world full of technology—reiterating this skill is not lost on us! The students were also taught basics on making and keeping schedules to help with time management skills. The leaders then facilitated discussion of mastering good conversations using appropriate eye contact, active listening, and encouraging a friendly demeanor through responses. Even so, the crowd favorite was burger grilling, which then carried over into a luncheon where they learned basic table etiquette.

To spice it up and add a fun element to practicing good manners, the leader put little toy pigs at each table. These were “accountability pigs” as the students were able to use them throughout lunch to hand out at their table if they noticed anyone that broke a table etiquette rule. At the end of the lunch, each student was presented with a chef hat to commemorate their “Life Skills Lunch” experience.

We were excited about this opportunity for our 7th and 8th grade students as they had a great time learning a variety of skills together. We are so glad we have a staff who thinks of creative ways to help our students grow in all aspects! We love our Pelham campus staff!