Kids First allows students to experience college life

About 150 youths from grades three through eight participated Thursday in an event hosted by Kids First, a program developed by VCU Sports Center graduate students. Program activities are designed to gear the youths’ thinking toward college and enlighten them to the academic nature of university life, in addition to the athletic side.

Sixty students met at Franklin Street Gymnasium, where the VCU Dance Team taught them some cheers and hip movements, while Rodney the Ram caused a commotion.

A Falling Creek sixth-grader named Brittany sat on the sidelines out of breath and told everyone, “The cheers were fun, but Rodney was scary.”

Kids First is a group of 10 graduate students operating inside the First Step program – a program designed to turn kids onto their academic interests. Lofton said it’s there to help them “gain exposure to something they may not have had exposure to-to make them interested in college.”

Kids First gathered the group of children from after-school programs in the area. Some of the programs included Colonial Heights Kids Assistance program, Chesterfield Parks and Recreation, Highland Parks Boys & Girls Club, Richmond Preparatory Academy, Richmond Redevelopment Housing Authority and Mt. Vernon Baptist Church.

After the activities at the gym, three groups split up and experienced different facets of university activity. One group of 50 visited VCU’s Student Media Center, while another attended a nutrition class and did a 25-minute workout. The third group participated in a physics-related activity, in which, along with with physics professor Alison Baski, they dealt hands-on with electromagnets and magnetism.

Baski gave the students a chance to see the kinds of academic thinking used in college work. She treated her group like a college-level class to give the experience authenticity. They answered questions on worksheets and were asked to identify which objects were magnetic.

Latonja Jones, a Kids First member, said the most important aspect of the program is getting kids involved in both the academic and athletic sides of college. Jones said the graduate students hoped to connect the two sides with the assortment of activities the children did that day.

Also scheduled for the evening were dinner and free tickets for every student to go to a VCU basketball game.

During the pasta feast before the VCU game against the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Kenneth Washington, another Kids First member, talked about what he felt the children took away from the event.

“They’ve gained a new experience,” he said. “How many of these kids know what physics is? This is something they’ve never seen before and may never see again.”

Brittany, however, was not impressed with the physics lesson.

“It was boring because I’m a language arts person,” she said.

Davon Smith, another student participating in the Kids First program, simply said basketball was the best part of the day, as he stared wide eyed at the VCU basketball highlights being projected onto the wall.

Angelo Brown, a fourth-grader, said, “Running was the best part, because I cut in front of everybody and didn’t have to run as much.”

Kids First is responsible for similar outings in the past in which they’ve taken groups from inner-city schools to VCU basketball games.

Matt Moeller said they want to keep a consistent flow of children through the program in its effort to turn attitudes around and spark interests in academic areas like art, science, writing or playing music.