Area kids walk into future by filling in the blank

By Shantel Asher 

The HAC department’s Event Planning and class ran what was called HACtion Libs all day Thursday, September 28 as part of Trine University’s annual Walk into My Future event. The day, which sees more than a thousand elementary school students visit Trine’s campus. Faculty volunteers, and schools from Steuben and LaGrange county all come together to promote secondary education among elementary schools. For most of these students, it is their first look past high school.

Each department on campus hosts a station for small groups of students to enjoy, and HAC was no exception. HAC’s HACtion Libs were short, fill-in-the-blank stories inspired by the Mad Libs you may have filled out in your childhood. HAC volunteers taught a quick lesson on nouns, adjectives, and verbs, so the students knew what kind of word was needed.

Then the students progressed through five different stations with two volunteers posted at each one. After the story was read to them, volunteers had kids act out the story as well. They showed their best ‘cry’ faces and displayed their best roars.

Most of the students had never filled out a Mad Lib before. But they enjoyed writing the quirky stories and loved acting them out. They also liked the mystery of the Mad Lib. They enjoyed not knowing what story they were creating until after it was done.

There were 16 student volunteers from the HAC department, which included: Shantell Asher, Austin Baker, Fernando Bauzo, Dusty Cowart, Jessica Griffioen, Mycah Houser, Sonsee Jenkins, Langston Johnson, Danielle Miller, Sam Miller, Jeff Pasquinelli, Elijah Thiess and Hunter Wilde.

What the 1,300 elementary students saw from our HAC department was teamwork, enthusiasm, and leadership. Thank you to all volunteers for your time and commitment. These students will surely remember how you made them feel, even if they don’t remember everything that was taught.