30
Youth
December 7 – 20, 2013
www.SanTanSun.com
Valley Christian club builds ‘Bridges’ of friendship BY TRACY HOUSE
It’s Wednesday and the newly formed “Bridges” club is having its weekly meeting. Students are sharing their lunch time playing games, chatting and building what club president and founder Nicole Morgan hopes are lifelong friendships. Nicole is a senior at Valley Christian High School in Chandler. This year’s homecoming queen, Nicole has been working since her junior year to establish a club that unites regular education and VINE (Valley’s Individual Needs Enhancement) students to celebrate friendship and create lasting bonds. As a part of Best Buddies program at Hamilton High School and having had a sister who was special needs who died when Nicole was 9 years old, Nicole says she’s always been compassionate toward special needs kids. “When I left Hamilton and I came to Valley I wanted to start a club.” The result is Bridges. “We decided to make it ‘Bridges’ because it’s one person connecting with another to make a lasting friendship,” says Nicole. “It’s the non-VINE students with the VINE students coming together.” Reaching out to the students at VCHS was natural for Nicole. Her mom is a special education teacher and Nicole has been involved with special needs kids through schools she’s attended and other activities. “I want to teach and be a special needs therapist,” Nicole says. She has a buddy from Hamilton, Talie, with whom she still spends time by going to movies,
BRIDGES FOUNDER: Nicole Morgan made her idea a reality when she started the Bridges Club at Valley Christian High School. STSN photo by Tracy House
ice skating, hanging out and baking. Nicole says she met with the principal, presenting her vision and how she was going to get the information out to the school before she could start Bridges. To get other students from VCHS involved, Nicole started talking about the club, approaching other students to see if they were familiar with Best Buddies from other schools. “It was basically word of mouth,” says Nicole. The club is for ninth through 12th graders interested in getting to know other students and forming friendships. There are 20 VINE and non-VINE students participating in Bridges. Hannah Jeffries is the vice president of
Bridges and freshman Gracie Bear is going to be president next year after Nicole graduates. Robin Johnson is the club sponsor, and is on hand for the Wednesday lunch activities. “She loves the club,” says Nicole. “She is the best lady ever. Honestly, if I didn’t have her I don’t even know if I could have got this started at all.” Weekly meetings are a time to share lunch, play games and interact, but the commitment doesn’t end with the lunch bell. “If you have a buddy, the non-VINE student has to make sure they text the VINE student at least once a week to see how they’re doing, they have to interact with them if they see them at school and talk to them. It’s a commitment because it’s a friendship they’re making and if they don’t try to make time for their buddy then they shouldn’t be part of this club.” Students volunteer to be part of Bridges. Nicole says, the expectation is that they spend time together at least once a month outside of school as well. Nicole sees Bridges going out into the community to do projects, getting together for movies and participating in other outside activities. She mentions the club will be participating in Special Olympics in the spring. Some of the activities Nicole says she hopes Bridges will get involved with is Unify through Special Olympics. “The next sport we can join is basketball, soccer and track. They also said we can make a cheerleader team.” Bridges is beginning to schedule
activities outside of lunch. “Right now we’re going to start off with a Christmas party,” explains Nicole of the elf-themed event. “Each person who got buddied up with another person, they’re going to interact more and get to know (each other) more and then I’m going to start doing more activities for them to be more like a family, so each one of us can get to know each other on deeper levels—make sure we have those lasting friendships even after high school.” Valley Christian High School is located at 6900 W. Galveston St., Chandler. Visit vchsaz.org for more information. Tracy House is the SanTan Sun News news editor. She lives in Ironwood Vistas with her husband and four children and can be reached at tracy@santansun.com.
UNO: Caedyn Leatherland, left, Rachael Townsend, Kendra Lorbeck, Noah Cefola and Josh Burgess get a game of UNO in during Bridges’ lunch. STSN photo by Tracy House
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