A few years ago, AALEAD staff spent a few hours at Pyramid Atlantic in Silver Spring, and upon Rick Chen’s recommendation, Mentoring decided to bring a few mentees and mentors back for an art-filled afternoon on February 20, 2010.
After a short presentation from our host, Gretchen, we got into the hands-on part, filling our basins with pulp made from recycled jeans, and straining that into pieces of paper. Our guys liked it because it was messy and fun to play with, while the girls like the different results from mixing colors and painting with pulp.
We also learned about how paper is pressed and dried flat. All our students got to take turns placing paper in the “hot box” (where the sheets are dried) and some took part in Gretchen’s demonstrations.
Everyone worked together to clean the studio toward the very end, and showed what real AALEAD teamwork looks like. Thanks to everyone who came out!
Check out Pyramid Atlantic’s Blog for a few more pics!
Last week at Blair H.S. the students developed their Asian cooking prowess by making dumplings and bubble tea!
For the dumplings, they took some scallions, soy sauce, garlic powder, ground meat, and onions, and mixed it all up. After putting a little bit in a dumpling skin and wrapping it together, voila – they’d made pork and beef dumplings!
We got to eat them next time – thanks Don for cooking them!
On Thursday, Karen came in (again!) and taught us all about the Taiwanese origin of bubble tea. With a little bit of regular lipton tea, low-fat creamer, and a spoonful of tapioca pearls, the Blair students made their own bubble tea!
For the 2010 Martin Lurther King Jr. Day of Service, AALEAD Maryland held our second annual collection of toiletries for an area homeless shelter. This year, community members, students and staff all pitched in to donate soap, shampoo, toothbrushes, toilet paper, etc, that our students then assembled into packages which can easily be carried from place to place when people leave the shelter. The shelter got valuable toiletries that will help those in need and the students got an opportunity to earn SSL Hours, all in all an amazing day of serving the community!
For more information on the organization that received our donation, please visit:
The Montgomery County Coalition for the Homeless
On Friday, December 11th, our Maryland students, mentees, mentors and community members who have supported AALEAD this year attended our annual Holiday Party. This year we filled up the Gilchrist Center for Cultural Diversity in downtown Wheaton. Students from Blair and Einstein High Schools performed a wide variety of cultural dances, songs and other performances for the enjoyment of everyone.
A special thanks to The Asian Pacific America Bar Association of DC for their continued support of our students! They were kind enough to gather together books which they donated as gifts. As you can see…they were very appreciative.
November 21st, 2009 seventeen of Maryland’s middle and high schoolers united to create, package, and deliver sack lunches to Montgomery County Coalition for the Homeless. In total 116 sack lunches were made, and each lunch included an encouraging letter hand written by the students themselves.
Two students wrote about their experience and answered the following question:
“Does helping others help me to be a better person? Why?”
My name is Kaison Wu. I come from a 100% Chinese family. I currently attend A. Mario Loiederman for the creative and performing arts. I enjoy art/chorus (electives). I am an 8th grader. I found AALEAD when my cousins went to AALEAD at Loiederman 2 years ago. This is my 3rd year in AALEAD. The first year was a blast, second year…well…okay, 3rd is undecided, it’s going well so far.Helping others does help yourself because you learn to spread knowledge to others, so they know or earn a certain need. When I help someone it helps me feel accomplished because it makes me know that I am making this world a better place.
- Kaison 8th grader
My name is JJ Querubin. I am in the 7th grade. I go to A. Mario Loiederman Middle School. The reason why I joined AALEAD is because my brother and sister were in it and my parents wanted me to join it, so I did. So when I went to the SSL hour (student service learning) to make sandwiches for the homeless, it made me a better person because knowing that people aren’t starving from food because some very nice Asian people gave them some great sandwiches. I’m not just saying that the people got food, I’m saying because my mom when she was little she was poor so she had to work at a very young age so that makes me so happy; and makes me feel like a better person.
The Maryland Middle schools continued our cultural journey this week by having a presentation and activity done about China/Taiwan. We learned about the history of bubble tea, and the students were able to make some of their own to drink. Thank you to Karen, our guest, for teaching us how to make such a delicious drink. Henry from Eastern Middle School demonstrates in this video how to make bubble tea…enjoy and bottoms up!
On Wednesday the 28th Maryland Middle School and High School had an incredible Halloween Party at the Wheaton Community Center. Students from Einstein and Blair High School got together and decorated the area with amazing fun decorations and held some exciting events and stations like face painting and pumpkin pie eating contest. It was great to see High School students and Middle School students able to interact with one another and have a great time.
Along with the party, the Middle School students from Parkland and Eastern helped to write “get well” cards to victims of the tsunami in Samoa and the flooding in the Philippines. The activity helped to remind them that their community can also extend to the global community and that issues in other countries can have impacts on our lives here in the U.S.
Thank you to all the Maryland staff helping to organize the event, and also to the students from middle school to high school. Your words of encouragement are more powerful than you can imagine, and the families of the tragedies will be thankful for your support.
We are well into our summer program now and are halfway done with many of the projects we had started.
Part of the program was learning how to make a video game and play it online. Two volunteers come in regularly to teach the students the ropes to video game making.
When we’re not creating video games, or making art, or even researching for our mini-project, we are able to enjoy the beautiful weather Maryland has to offer!
Outdoor games are a fun way to release energy and get some good ol’ sun!
On June 23rd, more than 30 of our DC and Maryland High school students embarked on a 3 day, 2 night trip in the woods of Western Maryland. Obstacle courses, night walks, and sleeping quietly were some of the challenges that our students overcame. We all returned safe and sound and ready for showers.
Congratulations on a great 2008-2009 school year! Lets have an awesome summer everyone!
Maryland program took advantage of the Dave & Busters ‘power card’ to get everyone who attended an hour of unlimited game play to go along with some end-of-the-year celebratory snacking. The students really worked hard this year to prepare for MSAs, final exams and finishing their school work, so AALEAD wanted to give them a chance to relax with this trip.
Due to an unfortunately towed car (which contained the camera), there aren’t any pictures of our night at Dave & Busters, but be assured, everyone involved had a lot of fun. Look for more events in the near future as we kick off our summer program.
If any AA LEAD students are reading this, please let me know if you have any pictures that you took and we’ll be sure to upload some!
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