By Intern Izaac Mikael M. Alba

Time flies. As the fall semester comes to a close and students begin their final hoo-rah for their classes, bombarded with projects and exams alike, the team behind ASCENDER did not forget to congratulate their students for coming so far in the school year. Ms. Alejandra Polcik, along with Diana Gorostieta Martinez and the rest of the ASCENDER team, scheduled an ACC-wide Posada to celebrate the closing semester on November 30, at the ACC Eastview campus.

A Posada is a traditional Mexican Christmas celebration that reenacts the journey of Mary and Joseph seeking shelter in Bethlehem and for ASCENDER mentors and mentees, ACC Eastview was their inn. The event began with a BINGO game where mentors and mentees would network with other ASCENDER members to try and fill out their BINGO by matching a person with one of the prompts given on the card. This was followed by a 10-minute reflection for the students and their mentors-looking back at the goals they achieved, skills they learned and things they were grateful for this fall semester. Getting into the holiday spirit, ASCENDER threw a White Elephant hosted by Ms. Flowers where students and mentors brought gifts for each other and were given the option to stick with the gift they chose or to steal another person’s gift. 

As the event came to a close, a raffle along with some final words of inspiration to the students and mentors were given to leave them with inspiration to finish this semester strong and to look forward to future semesters at ACC knowing ASCENDER will be there to back them up.