George Washington University Athletics
SUMMER SPOTLIGHT: Volleyball's Callie Fauntleroy and Skylar Iott
7/25/2018 12:00:00 AM | Women's Volleyball
After working with The Grassroot Project this past year, rising junior Skylar Iott and rising sophomore Callie Fauntleroy of GW volleyball looked for ways to get more involved with the organization and completed an internship that took them to South Africa. There, the pair of Colonials went through extensive training with Grassroots Soccer and listened to lectures from GW professors, the DC Department of Health and other guest speakers to become Master Trainers for the organization.
Iott and Fauntleroy took some time to share their experience with GWsports.com:
"This summer I interned with the Grassroot Project, a local nonprofit organization that teaches health education to middle schoolers through sports and games. As a part of my internship, we traveled to South Africa to learn how to be Master Trainers from Grassroots Soccer. We first stayed in Johannesburg to be trained at the Nike Training Center. We also learned some of the country's history by visiting the Hector Peterson Memorial and Museum and the Apartheid Museum. We then traveled to Cape Town, where we were toured through Robben Island and Nelson Mandela's prison cell by a man who had actually been imprisoned on the island for five years. Our trip then ended with a four-hour hike up Table Mountain."
"I learned so much this summer. For Skylar and I, our experience working as interns with The Grassroot Project provided insight into the non-profit work we plan to pursue as a career. Here at The Grassroot Project, we collaborate with middle schools to teach sexual health, nutrition and mental health. Our program is run by student-athletes, giving it a unique dynamic. As Master Trainers, we worked beside four other student-athletes this summer, one being Jon Mabie from our men's rowing team, along with three American soccer players.
Once we returned from South Africa, our work load increased substantially. Everything we accomplished revolved around our purpose of running the training sessions in which we would teach the incoming athletes how to be a grassroots coach. Our biggest tasks were interviewing grassroots coaches on how their sessions went, which would help us determine what we needed to improve on in our future trainings, recruiting new athletes to become coaches and creating our training guide.
This entire summer has been filled with memorable experiences. From learning about the social inequities that trouble the citizens of the city we are living in and attending meetings featuring GW professors, DC Department of Health officials, dedicated teachers from our partnering schools and many more incredible people, I've gained a new perspective of D.C. that has made me appreciate the city on a much higher level.
From those meetings, we determined what we thought would be beneficial for our student-athletes to learn, and therefore, incorporate into our training. This week is our pilot training session. We've waited all summer for it and are extremely excited to see how it turns out.
This experience has been incredible because of the people we got the chance to work with. Luckily for us, our work doesn't end this summer. We will continue to teach incoming athletes to become grassroots coaches in semesters to come and will help oversee the programs to ensure they are running smoothly. Heading into the fall, I am pumped to see Grassroots expand and reach more student-athletes and more middle school students. I can only see a bright future ahead of us and I cannot wait for our next training!!"
