Members of the Minority Mentorship Program splashed into the fall semester with a pool party. 

The event, which was hosted in the UCA Aquatics Center on Sept. 17, was MMP’s first event in a series of monthly programs throughout the school year. 

Maria Negrete Padron, associate director and secondary advisor, said the goal of the monthly programs is to “educate, engage and empower” all students. 

After being checked in by MMP mentors and members of the executive board, students were free to jump into the pool.

The event featured water guns, pool noodles and balls, popsicles and a booming speaker.

Participants spent the evening catching and throwing volleyballs, dodging left and right to avoid being squirted by a water gun and eating popsicles to cool themselves down after a swim. 

After attendees were finished swimming, the party continued outside, where students concluded the night with conversation as they reclined on lawn chairs and shuffled their feet to the beats of line dances.

Tytiana Wells, sophomore social sciences major and MMP mentor, decided to come to the event because “I appreciate being able to be with a community that looks like me, and I knew that at this pool party, I would see and interact with a lot of people who do look like me.” 

Her favorite part was watching everyone have fun, even if she was not directly involved. 

Wells recalled not knowing much about college life when she was a freshman, and MMP helped heavily with making the transition. 

Wells’s mentor knew more about college than she did, and “she was always there when I needed her. 

“We became friends quickly,” Wells said. 

More importantly, her mentor helped Wells become secure and dependent on herself rather than her parents. 

Wells said she decided to become a mentor because she “wanted to be a good influence on people.” 

She appreciated being a mentee last year and wanted to do it for other freshmen. 

She “wanted to pay it forward,” which she does by spending time with mentees, reaching out, letting them know that she is their advocate and attending the events. 

Kalashja Douglass, a freshman engineering physics major, came “to get out of her room.” 

The people and the possibility of making friends drew her in. 

“I like watching people have fun, I think that’s fun,” Douglass said.

Shamiah Martin, sophomore elementary education major, decided to come to the event because she wanted to “build a better relationship with her mentees and people that look like me, and promote diversity.”

The idea of a pool party on campus was new for Martin. 

The idea was first brought to MMP by senior theater and film major Crystal Daniels, a mentor and member of MMP’s executive board.

“I came up with this idea when I was either a freshman or sophomore,” Daniels said. 

“As a freshman, I was a mentee and became a mentor my sophomore year,” she said. “All I can remember is sitting in on one of our general body meetings and I asked the co-directors at the time, ‘Will MMP host a pool party?’ They explained to me that that could be determined if I joined exec one day, so I did, and it became the event I decided to host.” 

MMP’s next monthly program will take place Oct. 15.