This year's BBYO experience has been nothing short of new experiences. 

Other than going to IC and different summer programs, being involved in BBYO is hard while at boarding school. I live over an hour from the nearest chapter, so attending chapter meetings is already out of the question. I have school Monday through Saturday, so regional conventions are pretty much impossible if I don’t want to miss school and my sport. However, this past fall, my friend Shiraz, who also goes to boarding school, approached me with a project she had worked on: BBYO Boarding School. We tried to do the same thing a few years back, but we were met without any luck. She worked on it alone while I focused on school and asked me to help revive it. 

At IC, a meeting was held for boarding school students. We discussed what we wanted out of this experience and what we could do to help. When I returned to school, I went full speed ahead. I started getting back into the swing of things and helped organize events and do outreach. We had about 4 events throughout the spring before the elections, all on Zoom. 

This spring I started truly realizing why people are so into BBYO. I have built friendships and connections with other Jewish boarding school students, something I never thought would happen. In my chapter in China, the people in our chapter were the people who I went to synagogue with, so I never met anyone new. We also never held formal elections in China, so being able to participate and get elected was a new, exciting experience for me. I immediately got into the swing of things by planning an end-of-year Zoom call. Although it didn’t turn out the way I wanted, it was great to get to experience planning an event, and I am so excited to see what this new chapter turns out to be.