Update from Diana Tyson, Co-Founder of F3B

I want to give an update on our thirteenth annual F3B mission. This year has been truly exciting for us as it is our first trip to Europe, and there has not been a shortage of new and exciting events. Watching our girls experiment with the new foods of Bulgaria and finding creative ways to communicate are just a few examples. We spent our first week in Bulgaria where each day we have spent about 8 hours on the basketball court, and a total of 20 hours in numerous professional development sessions lead by some truly terrific women. We are now headed to Romania, where we will spend most of our time with young people from two orphanages there.

In the midst of our busy schedule we have squeezed in cultural touring, including a trip through Sofia starting at the magnificent St. Sofia Church.  Just yesterday we had the opportunity for a fascinating tour through the United States Embassy to visit the American Ambassador of Bulgaria, James Warlick, who happened to know a few things about the game of basketball himself. Our F3B and Bulgarian scholars benefited from this once-in-a-lifetime meeting by having a candid Q&A session providing insight to the numerous career paths available, and about this unique country. Deputy Chief of Mission Susan Sutton also spoke to us about women and leadership.

I’m fortunate  to be joined by some of Alcatel-Lucent’s finest, including Chief Scientist of Bell Labs (Murray Hill, NJ), Alice White, Technical Manager of Wireless Hardware Testing (Murray Hill, NJ), Chitra Venkatraman, FSA Engineer for Global End to End LTE Solutions (Murray Hill, NJ), Lizzette Rivera PMP,  Radio Software Developer (Swindon, UK) Josephine Wilson, Strategic Learning Consultant (Murray Hill, NJ), Parinaz Sekechi, Principal Business Consultant-Alcatel-Lucent Services (Murray Hill, NJ), Althea Lewis. All of our Alcatel-Lucent execs have taken part in leading outstanding professional development sessions for our young scholars every evening after basketball camp. In addition, our Alcatel-Lucent team multi-tasked– something they tell me they are used to — and alternated between their duties to F3B in Samokov and working at Alcatel-Lucent’s Sofia facility keeping track of what is happening back at the office.  They were graciously hosted by Bruno Schenk, General Manager for Services and Vesselka Todorova, Communications Manager.

In addition to the Alcatel-Lucent team, we have some terrific people from a variety of places.  They include Pamela Johnson James, a Senior Trainer at Middlesex County Board of Social Services, Dr. Deborah Campbell, PhD, adjunct Professor at Mountain State University, Beckley West Virginia (Washington DC Campus) and Rita Pettiford, a managing partner and HROD Director at Otema Consulting Services based out of New Jersey. Our entire F3B staff played a vital role in providing our girls with professional development sessions with the help of their extensive knowledge and personal expertise. On board we also had our professional photographer and accomplished fine artist Ariston Jacks, who graduated with a Masters in painting from the University of Arkansas, Little Rock, junior photographer Ellen Monroe, recent graduate of Gov. Livingston High School, Berkeley Heights, NJ, who will be entering her freshman year this coming fall at Smith College and our journalist Sadaf Sattarzadeh, a Rutgers graduate.

The 20 girls from Bulgaria come from throughout the country, and ranged in age from thirteen to eighteen. Although they all have prior basketball experience, coming from national Bulgarian camps from around the country, they were very eager to learn what we had to teach them. They all agree that they feel a significant improvement in their game with an extra kick of American style and sass!

And of course it wouldn’t be F3B without a talented and hardworking group of F3B basketball counselors lead by Jennifer Chuks, Hartford Graduate and current Head Coach and Assistant Athletic Director at Williams College, and assistant coaches Lauren Morris, a St. Peters College First Division small forward and Brittany Ray, a Rutgers graduate and professional basketball player as a guard for Dexia Namur Capitale in Namur, Belgium.

Our counselor lineup includes Adirah Banner from Newark, NJ a center/power forward from Weequahic High School who will be attending Union County this coming fall, Nicole Keitt from Newark, NJ who will be entering her senior year at Weequahic High School as a point guard for the Lady Indians, and Shantishia Steed also from Newark, NJ and a Weequahic High School graduate who will be entering her freshman year at Union County as a forward guard. Also from Newark, NJ Nigeria Jenkins, who will be entering St. Vincent High School as a freshman this coming fall as power forward for the St. Vincent Panthers.

From Orange, NJ we have Alaska King who currently attends Orange High School, and will be entering her senior year as a forward for the Lady Tornados and Sherika Russell who will be entering her junior year at Orange High School as a shooting guard for the Lady Tornados. Lyric Seymore from Easton, Maryland will be entering her junior year at Easton High School this fall as a forward center for the Lady Warriors and last but not least Samantha Winters from Washington, NJ who will be entering her senior year at Warren Hills Regional High School as a forward for the Blue Streaks.

Thanks to the help of our F3B counselors and coaches, our camp has been a great success; Today was our last day in Samokov, Bulgaria where we had our championship game and final closing ceremony. It has been a bittersweet farewell and an experience we will not forget.