Meet Soel, a Summer Search Bay Area junior at Napa High School.

We asked him to reflect on his journey through his first two years with Summer Search. Soel’s experiences highlight what is at the center of our mentors’ work – offering a safe space for our young people to be themselves and supporting them on their journey to make their dreams a reality.

Soel, from Summer Search Bay Area.

From the moment I found out about it, Summer Search has been an amazing tool for future insight into my life during high school and after; it has provided me with extremely helpful resources such as one-on-one mentoring, group mentoring, and of course, the summer experiences — all the resources given to me by Summer Search have been of great impact on my life and serve as a future reference for college life.

Starting with mentoring, I have been able to get some help from my mentor on academic and personal matters. In general, it has been nice to have someone I can talk to who will always listen to me and provide great advice. Mentoring can go from a short check-in to a long conversation. What I value most about it is the range of things that can be discussed; it could be personal things or it can be trivial matters that might come to mind during mentoring.

Another great tool from Summer Search is group mentoring. It is great to see my friends there and get to know other people and discuss several topics during our time. Group mentoring has opened my mind to many topics that I don’t usually think about. It has also helped me look through my own experiences and recall events from the past that are important to the person I am now.

Lastly, the summer experiences exceeded my expectations in a positive way and provided me with a sense of appreciation for the many activities that can be done in nature. All the experiences and the people I got to meet in the process will forever be part of what might be the greatest moments in my life. And the opportunity to be around nature and knowing that later in life, this opportunity will still be there.

[Pictured above] Soel on his summer experience, a two-week leadership course in Northern California with Sierra Nevada Journeys.

This summer, Soel will be traveling across the country to Vermont for four weeks to attend the Putney Summer Arts program! Leave a comment to wish him good luck!

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