Community Connect 22: Waco, Texas
Welcome to the second stop on the 2022 Disc Golf Pro Tour at the Waco Annual Charity Open in Waco, Texas!
It was the week of Spring Break so we chose to teach at the Greater Waco YMCA which is 8 miles away from the East Brazo Course commonly known as The Beast, home of the DGPT event. The YMCA was offering youth spring break activities and sports camps, so Uplay was able to fill a need for the YMCA and we were able to teach kindergarten through sixth-graders.
Our fantastic line-up of Coaches Zoe Andyke, Dustin Keegan, Casey White, Ella Hansen, new joining us Cole Redalen and Lydia Lyons, and returning Cynthia Ricciotti.
We taught 115 kids over two different sessions. We had kindergarten and first grade for 1 hour and then we only had a little less than 30 minutes with the second through sixth graders.
The weather was a bit cold so we set up inside of the YMCA's gym and taught inside with kindergarten through sixth grade. Kindergarten and first grade received an in-depth presentation and demo.
The total discs that were given out to kids, for the purposes of taking home to play more, was 115. We had 100% engagement and every student had a chance to be playful, encouraging of one another, and throw the disc.
Although it took about two to three turns for those younger kids, we started seeing the kindergarteners and first-graders making putts from 12 feet away right around their fourth and fifth rotation. It was awesome because we saw this happen all across the classroom and all it just took was a couple of reps and a couple more reps and the coaching of the Pros standing next to them and then the kids understood exactly what to do and they were very successful doing it.
Each school or organization is unique and that is something that we have definitely learned for youth organizations. Outside of schools, there are so many instructors and staff members doing so many different things, that we really want to be as efficient and streamline our communication as possible, to make sure that the kids are getting maximum benefits of maximum time with the Pros and throwing reps.
After the wrap up we had two different staff members come up again and ask for the details and clarification for the DGPT Event because they are planning on bringing kids and making it to the event. We in turn were also invited to come and watch the State Wrestling Tournament that's happening this weekend. So it would appear that disc golf was so inspiring that even coaches of other sports want to share their Sports with us. Also one of the YMCA staff members is a disc golf enthusiast and a player who has experience playing and really loves the sport. He was so excited to head up the sessions, continuing to bring out the baskets and discs for the kids because he loves his disc golf and wished he would have picked it up when he was younger as well.
Thank you to the DGPT, DGN, UDisc, Discmania, Upper Park Disc Golf, Disc Dots, and Trash Panda for making all of this education and the product giveaways to the school and children possible. Check out this video created by the Disc Golf Pro Tour to recap this fun teaching day!
And, don't forget to check out our Flickr page for more adorable photos!
