Musterfield Program
My name is Leslie Parra and I am a Posse scholar and a junior here at Babson. I have worked in the Musterfield Framingham Program for 2 semesters now. This program has hit close to my heart because of a certain young man, Eric, that I found myself connecting a lot with especially this semester. The other mentors and I go to the community center every Friday hoping to get a couple of the kids interested in the day’s activities, but we usually end up with only about 4-5 students every time. Eric is in the 10th grade and has gone to every single program of ours this semester. If you know anything about high school boys, you know that an afterschool program that makes you think is a lot less enticing than the computer games that the other kids ending up choosing over us. Nonetheless, he comes with energy, excitement and curiosity each time, always trying to encourage others to join us too. This semester we chose to do an entrepreneurship series for our programming, starting with a thought creation class and ending with a product prototype class. The best part of watching Eric go through the program and participate in our events was experiencing his journey of becoming a mentor himself. It was amazing to see him as he got more and more comfortable with working with the younger students and coaching them throughout our activities. Seeing him bring his passion for sneakers and sports and watching him transform that passion into a creative product was really inspiring for me. My hope is to continue on with this program my senior year at Babson, God willing, and eventually nominate him next year for the Posse Foundation scholarship program that brought me here to Babson. Knowing that there is a student like Eric, and so many out there just like him, with so much passion, creativity, and great potential is what keeps coming back to the Community Action Program.