Saturday, June 7th, 2025 SOAR travelled to Bennington Lake for “free fishing day.” Despite the intense heat everyone was excited to take advantage of this opportunity to learn how to fish. You could say they were “hooked” on the idea.
We found a quiet spot by the restrooms with plenty of shade to protect us from the hot summer sun. Once more participants started to arrive we set up another canopy to provide additional cover for them. We made sure to bring plenty of drinking water and extra sunscreen for everyone. We later found out the restrooms nearby were out of order, so occasionally we had to escort some of our members to another smaller restroom down by the boat ramp.
Once the volunteers arrived we prepared our fishing gear and began splitting our participants into two separate groups. We led one group down by the water to begin instruction, while the other would remain at the meeting spot and make various arts & crafts such as little aquariums and sun prints. After about 15-20 minutes we would rotate and have groups switch activities. We kept their time out in the sun relatively short to ensure nobody overheated. We also made it abundantly clear that if anyone wasn’t feeling well they could return to our meeting spot to relax, hydrate, and cool off.
Both groups were given the opportunity to fish by the lake, and then brought back to finish the arts and crafts they had started earlier. We then all had lunch together before packing up and returning home. Honestly I couldn’t have thought of a better way to spend a summer afternoon, and if you can then by all means let “Minnow.”
