Dude Time

On Wednesday's, while the ladies work with Strong Women Strong Girls, the dudes hang out. Because our activity changes week to week, we have no other name for Wednesday activities than "Dude Time." No matter what the activity, we try to introduce themes of mentoring and teamwork through fun games and events.

The Gym at A Giving Heart

More often than not, we go to Miss Christie's at A Giving Heart to play at the gym. There we play basketball, kickball, and sometimes Frisbee with each other and the students in A Giving Heart's after-school program. In our free time, we play knockout, around the world, dodgeball, and our newest favorite game, SPUD.

Hezekiah practices his shots from up close

Before: Cayden and Raymair line

up before their race

After: While tired, the boys shake

hands to congratulate each other

on a good race

Lately, we have been running! The guys like to race around and across the gym to see who's the fastest. With Miss Maggie as the starting official, everyone lines up with their hands against the wall and runs as fast as they can to the finish line. In order to promote good sportsmanship, we shake hands or fist bump before and after each race. While winning is great, it is very important to congratulate the winner and encourage each other in competition.

While most of our guys like free play, A Giving Heart occasionally hosts games for all of the students in the gym. We've played two-hand-touch football a few times and have even run through an obstacle course. It doesn't matter what their doing, our guys like competing!

Cayden runs from the soccer station to take a

shot at the basketball station of the obstacle course

One team lines up and focuses on the obstacle course.

They ended up winning!

When we can't get to the gym, we go to the park and do various other activities to engage our dudes. 

Trash Pick-ups

We love our community, and we want to improve it. That's why some Wednesday's we spend our activity time setting an example by serving our community. Searching for trash all over, we found the spots in Allentown that have the most litter and reported that information to the Project HAND team. They are working on a litter and trash project, so our findings helped them out a lot!

Raymair poses with the large bag of trash

he and his team found throughout Allentown

Shane and Jaymair clean up 

the Lunchtime Lot by the Hilltop Alliance

Teambuilding

When the weather isn't good and we have to stay inside, we play games. Recently, we tried two teambuilding games that challenged the guys to communicate and work together. The first game, "Human Knot," had us all twisted together trying to become one circle again. The second game tested our self control: packs of fruit snacks were in the middle of the circle but only one person could stand up to get one pack of fruit snacks at a time. Every time the guys talked or broke the rules, they would have to put all the fruit snacks back and start over again! This activity took a long time, but they managed to do it!

Whatever the dudes do together, we're always learning about teamwork and each other. It's important to work together and try new things as a team. For future Wednesday's, we hope to keep this theme strong while having fun with "The Dudes!"