A team of Au Pair in America Long Island Au Pairs ran the Color Run in Queens last weekend.
The Color Run was founded in March of 2011 as an event to promote healthiness and happiness by bringing the community together to participate in the “Happiest 5k on the Planet”. Check it out here.
The Au Pair in America team was organized by Aisha Summers, a Canadian au pair living with a host family in Coram. She recruited au pair friends Christine Van Tonder, Shireen Hendricks , Corinna Sommerman, and Elsmarie Otto to run with her. They came up with a team uniform, white t-shirts, colorful tutus and accessories! They met early that morning and took the Long Island Railroad to the event. The festivities were fun and they all want to do it again sometime.
Aisha said, “The color run is to celebrate yourself as a person, where you are in life and what you’ve accomplished as an individual 🙂 I think my favorite part was really just forgetting the stresses and enjoying a great event with great people creating a great memory!”
Christine a South African au pair living in Smithtown shared, “The reason I did is was so that I can spend some time with friends away from work and had previously heard about the color run and it seemed like a fun experience. The actual event was very awesome, planned out well, colorful of course, there was music playing, everyone (the runners and race organizers) was very friendly and happy which created a great atmosphere. My favorite part of the race had to be just spending it with some of my friends and also crossing the finish line with all all the other people that had finished as well and properly celebrating it right there with music and of course the throwing of colored powder, which looked incredible. I would like to do it again and am hoping to do the one coming up in July, in Brooklyn, hopefully get some more people into it. All and all i think the color run was a great idea to do as a group, and the message behind it is so much more meaningful, just knowing that it promotes healthy living around the world, and supports charities is a wonderful accomplishment, not to mention all the smiles it generates. I definitely encourage other people to try t out, at least once.”
Corinna a German au pair living in Huntington added, “ The color run was so much fun. I did it because I wanted to meet some other girls and it just sounded fun and I saw so many pictures but I never did it myself.. I checked out their website for pictures and I saw that they also do it in Germany, so I definitely will do it again with my German friends 🙂 My favorite part was of course getting dirty and party afterwards with the girls 🙂 It was such a nice day, even though we all had to get up early, but it was totally worth it!”
Congratulations to the Team! Spreading good will and happiness with a cultural flair!
Susette Araujo Sousa from Brazil visited Minnesauke Elementary School to share her culture with her host child’s Kindergarten class. Mrs. Sheridan welcomed her and the students were excited to listen and learn!
Susette showed off the Brazilian flag colors and explained their meanings. Green for the earth, gold for the minerals and blue for the sky!
The children loved the brigadeiros that Susette brought to share!
The one poem read at the Suffolk County Community College ESL graduation ceremony was by Au Pair Monika Vuic from Croatia. Monika is the au pair for a family in Mt. Sinai.
Suffolk County Community College has an excellent ESL program for adult students. Many Au Pair in America au pairs choose SCCC for their required college classes. Since there are 5 levels of English classes to graduate from the ESL program, often au pairs will extend for a second year because they want to complete the 5 levels.
SCCC held ESL graduation on Friday, May 16th at 7 PM at the Van Nostrand Auditorium on the Grant or Western Campus of the college. The ceremony was very moving with several graduates telling stories about their journey to the USA and why they came. The au pairs all dressed up, many host families came to watch their au pairs graduate. This Spring 10 Suffolk County Au Pair in America Au Pairs graduated from the ESL program. Congratulations to Adele Mosquero, Priscilla Rodrigues, Nikoleta Todtova, Victoria Morales, Anais Nivon, Monika Vuic, Ramona Etzel, Linyan Feng, Natalia Jaramillo, and Andressa Mendonca. As their Community Counselor, Cindy Garruba was happy to attend the ceremony and congratulated each individually with a rose.
Au Pair in America Community Counselors, Stamford & London Offices and our Foreign Partners gathered in Chicago May 7 – 10 for our Conference. We were led by Ruth Ferry, executive director and senior VP of APIA USA and Linda James, senior VP APIA UK. They inspired and led the group, along with William Gertz, President and CEO of APIA.
We learned about new systems and innovations, managing situations that arise, cultural communication and so much more. Connections through out the group were fostered and understanding increased.
Selecting Au Pair in America for your childcare needs will allow you to have the best supported Community Counselor, staff and foreign interviewers. We have ongoing training throughout the year with webinars on many topics. There is always someone available to help a family or au pair when needed!
German Au Pair, Justine Probst visited her host child’s 2nd grade classroom to talk about her country with the students.
Au Pair in America has au pairs who love working with different types of children.
Au Pairs have two weeks of paid vacation each year in America and a month of travel after they complete their au pair program. The Suffolk County cluster of Au Pair in America gathered this past Sunday to see a presentation by Tommy McNamara, a tour guide with 
