Fall 2022 BranchOut!Picnic Recap

BranchOut! hosted a picnic to celebrate the end of a successful summer on Saturday, September 10th at the Cabin John Regional Park in Bethesda, Maryland. About 60 people attended the event, where our attendees not only got to taste the delicious food, but also got to network and bond as a team. We were especially glad that many of BranchOut!’s Howard County Chapter (HoCo) student mentors were able to attend this event, which is the first social event we have had since the pandemic started.

Mentors made new friendships through various activities, such as the human knot and frisbee. Additionally, there were many guest speakers, such as four HoCo adult leaders, Cuiwei Zhao, Hui Guo, Rui Xu, and Jin Tang, who delivered an amazing speech on the HoCo summer projects with the Howard County Public School System. Team leads from each summer BO! Project presented a recap and summary of the accomplishments in Career Panels, Innovator, FCPS tutoring, and Pohick.

Additionally, Maryland Delegate Lily Qi and Dr. Chao Wu, a former school board member of HCPSS, joined us. They talked about the importance of becoming leaders in our community and taking action. They both provided insight regarding how to represent our community as Asian Americans, such as by running for school board, to support and represent the AAPI community.

Finally, all attendees enjoyed lunch with a wide assortment of foods - homemade dishes, pizza, pastas, fried rice, noodles, spring rolls, deserts, popsicles, chips, drinks, and more. Overall, the picnic event was a huge success as mentors, leaders, parents, and younger siblings were all able to connect with one another and interact as a cohesive team.

We want to thank those who participated in the event and we also want to thank the student leaders who helped to organize the event.

2022 Fall Picnic Planning Committee:

Victoria Wang, 12th grade, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology

Richard Zhu, 10th grade, Richard Montgomery High School

Elizabeth Li, 10th grade, Oakton High School

David Liu, 10th grade, Episcopal High School

David Cao, 11th grade, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology

Photo Credits: Roger Wang, Victoria Wang, Yuhsien Wu, Jin Tang, Yiwen He, Estella Xi, Daniel Soong