By Garrett Wissel
Elm Staff Writer
Earlier this month it was announced that Washington College would be adding a new service club to campus: Adventure Club. As its name suggests, this club is all about adventuring and exploring in the form of hikes, beach trips, and other casual recreational activities all over the greater Delmarva region. The club will be led by president Victoria Zieminski, junior, and vice president Gillian Heckert-Mitchell, sophomore, with Dr. Leslie Sherman, co-chair of the environmental science and studies department, acting as faculty advisor.
“This club is a way to get off campus, enjoy the outdoors, explore new parts of Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, and get some volunteer hours,” Zieminski said in an email to the student body.
The volunteer hours will come in the form of picking up litter or otherwise helping to beautify the locations that the club will visit on their adventures. Having the service hours built into each adventure will provide a convenient way for club members to help the Delmarva community and enjoy doing it.
Zieminski said in her email that, because the Adventure Club is brand new this semester, it’s still technically a Special Interest Group, meaning that there is a lack of a formal budget from the Student Government Association. As far as costs go, potential new members will be asked to cover very small fees for each adventure. The fees will take care of gas for the school vans and tolls for each trip, and are expected to cost around $5 to $10 per member.
Zieminski said that the club already has a few adventures planned, including the Billy Goat Trail in Potomac, MD and Cape Henlopen State Park in DE.
Zieminski explained that it wasn’t an overly complex process to form a new club. “To create this club I found students with a potential interest in hiking and adventuring,” Zieminski said. “I asked Leslie Sherman to be our faculty advisor and went to SGA to get approved as a Special Interest Group.”
She said that after this semester, Adventure Club can apply to be an official club on campus, allotting them a larger budget from the SGA and thus facilitating even more opportunities for club adventures.
It’s not just Zieminski and the other leaders of the club who are excited at the prospect of exploring the Delmarva peninsula—potential members are as well.
“Growing up on the Eastern Shore, I’ve always really enjoyed being outside, hiking and fishing,” sophomore Kyle Bunts said. “I definitely see this club as an opportunity to enjoy those same hobbies, only this time with my fellow WC students.”
New member senior Ethan LaLumia turned to the service opportunities as a reason for joining.
“It’s one thing to go and hike and explore the area, but being able to do that while also helping to improve each location we visit by cleaning the trails and beaches, it gives a whole other purpose to the club, and I think that’s really cool,” he said.
As the club gains more members, there will be more opportunities for students to both familiarize themselves with and improve the Eastern Shore and the surrounding Delmarva region. The Adventure Club is member-driven, and Zieminski and her fellow leaders encourage students to approach them with new ideas for adventures that fall between one-100 miles of campus. She can be reached at tzieminski2@washcoll.edu.