“So it’s kind of hard to know, if you listed the importance of your program, or the significance of your program - whether it would be the acquisition of academic skills or knowledge that would be on the top, or whether it would be the cultural experience that would be on the top. And maybe it’s not ONE on top, it’s just ALL of those things together.” - Ken Plum
As we kick off the first week of BranchOut! 2019 we are looking back at Ken Plum’s 2017 interview with Dr. Wu. The representative of the 36th District in the Virginia House of Delegates, retired teacher and school administrator, dives deep into every aspect of BranchOut! And it’s amazing to see just how far we have come from this point in our program’s history.
Looking back at our journey, just 4 summers ago, we were a small team of 20 students. This year, we are growing strong at 130+ students on our team. Our student mentors come from 7 counties and 36 schools this year, and each year we wait with much anticipation to see what our mentors and mentees can achieve together.
As we watch the success of this program year after year, we have to agree with Delegate Ken Plum: This program is about more than STEM mentoring. It is about more than cross-cultural communications. It is an opportunity for mentors and mentees to BranchOut! beyond themselves and try something new, experience something new, and discover a new way of interacting with the world around them.
Happy Week 1 of BranchOut! Everyone!
Contributed by: Jade Rhoden
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