BY LAUREN RAGUETTE
PALS Recruitment Associate
I joined PALS during a transition period in my life. I had just moved five hours away from home and entered a new graduate program, unsure how to find my place. I was looking for ways to engage with my community and remembered a friend posting about PALS and decided to check it out. Stepping onto Cabrini’s campus for my first program, I felt at home. The residence hall lobby was filled with smiling faces, old friends reconnecting, and new friendships quickly forming. While I didn’t actually know a single person in the room, I felt like I was right back in college re-entering my residence hall after a summer or winter break. PALS has a sense of community that is unmatched.
Finding friends after college is tough! You’re likely no longer surrounded by people your own age with a plethora of fun activities to do. PALS changes that! Imagine showing up to an Airbnb with 15 of your best friends with a fully booked itinerary of beach days, winery tours, Spikeball tournaments, delicious food, and karaoke bars. Enter: our modified programs.
Last summer, Tori Cedar and I were the Program Leads for PALS Atlantic City, one of the first modified programs from PALS. Our modified programs are designed for participants aged 25+ with increased independence and autonomy in decision making, while retaining the one-to-one pairings that make PALS so special. The shorter schedule (5 days, 4 nights) allows for busy folks to fit plenty of PALS magic into their schedules! When planning, we thought about activities that we and our friends enjoy. With our apartment-style housing on the boardwalk in Atlantic City we planned some beach time and a night at Steel Pier with dinner overlooking the ocean and thrill rides and rollercoasters. We went to Ocean City, NJ, in style, singing at the top of our lungs on our party buses. We had an optional trip to a casino to try our luck at penny slots and capped off our final night at a beer garden and dancing at a beach bar on the sand. We committed to creating a program that included age-appropriate, inclusive activities, while furthering our mission and values at PALS. (And of course, it wouldn’t be PALS if we didn’t have tons of dance parties along the way!)
We enjoyed every second of the program and are so excited to see these modified programs continue to grow across the country. We saw our Partners continue to learn, grow, and challenge themselves, while providing space for everyone to be independent. We watched Peers enter PALS hesitant for their first program, leaving in tears and wishing it lasted all summer long. We witnessed friendships develop between all of our participants and we continue to hear stories of meet ups and Facetimes nearly a year later. It may be harder to find a community and friends at our age, but I promise you: join us this summer and you will be a part of the PALS Family for life.
Join us this summer at a modified program in one of our four locations across the country: Chicago, Atlantic City, Maine, or DC. We are now accepting volunteers ages 21+ at every location. Have fun, build friendships, and inspire a world of belonging this summer at PALS by applying today here. If you have questions or want to learn more, email me at support@palsprograms.org. We can’t wait to see you!