Fun, learning and games: middle schools students tackle challenge course and scavenger hunt

When incoming Jimmy Carter Middle School sixth grader Divinity Lovato first heard her father had signed her up to participate in the Governor’s Summer Challenge 2024 pilot program, she was initially disappointed.

“I didn’t want to come at all,” she admitted. “I ended up coming the first day and meeting people and thought it was going to be my first and last day.

“But I ended up coming back.”

Over time, Lovato said she began to make friends in the program and enjoyed the weekly work and field trips. On Friday, their field trip was to the University of New Mexico to try the university’s challenge course and to compete in a scavenger hunt inside the Center for the Arts.

Split into several groups, some students attempted the challenge course first, while another began with the scavenger hunt. Students also were guided through several team-building exercises that focused on building their communication skills. This included lifting a hula hoop up as a group using only their finger tips and playing hot potato. On the challenge course, they worked to balance a piece of wood on a log as a team, and teams of two balanced each other as they walked across two tightropes. The goal of the activities was to push the participants out of their comfort zones.

Meanwhile, in the Center for the Arts, students put their detective skills to the test and they tracked clues to the names of murals painted on the walls, and to discover what certain symbols meant that were carved into the pillars at the Tribute to Mother Earth Fountain.

“I thought it was pretty cool. I haven’t done a scavenger hunt in a while,” said Keith Romero, an incoming eighth grader at Jimmy Carter Middle School.

An expansion of the state’s summer reading program, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham tasked the New Mexico Air and Army National Guard to run a six-week summer challenge pilot program that mixed literary education with physical education, life-skills training and team-building exercises.

“The kids are working with educators who come in and work with them on their literacy skills and improve them, and the National Guard comes in to do the physical aspect of it,” said Hank Minitrez, public affairs director for the New Mexico National Guard. “We’re giving them some experience with physical fitness training, yoga and other concepts of staying mobile and in shape.”

When the National Guard was directed to oversee and implement the program, it also needed a partner school. Enter Jimmy Carter Middle School and principal Michelle Velasquez, who jumped at the opportunity to get her students involved. Velasquez asked teacher Jennifer LeMarie-Theus to oversee the program on the school’s behalf.

“She approached me and said she thought I’d be great for the summer job because I’m always into giving back to our kids,” LeMarie-Theus said.

Five days a week, students arrive at Jimmy Carter Middle School in the morning and receive a free breakfast, then write about whatever they’d like in their journals. After that, they begin working on their literacy skills with instructors until lunch. After eating, they usually are given a presentation by a rotating group of guests on life skills, team building exercises and the dangers of drugs. The afternoon is set aside for the National Guard to conduct fitness exercises with the students. The kids are then dismissed at 3:45 p.m.

So far, the kids have really taken to the program, LeMarie-Theus said, and her hope is that they take away a feeling of being seen and prioritized by the program and the adults involved.

“They’re happy to come here and be with their friends and just be kids,” she said. “I hope they feel loved and cared for.”