Avery Swartzendruber is now a freshman at Dover High School. She was fully remote until February of 2021, was hybrid twice a week, and most recently returned to the high school full time.
When Covid shut down the schools last March 2020, she was rehearsing for the 8th grade play and music concerts which then did not happen. Like many students, traditional year end dances, celebrations, fields trips, etc. were cancelled. They did manage to have a drive by graduation for the 8th grade class.
A week later, her long time favorite Camp Foss which she loved shut down in New Hampshire. Suddenly she, like so many kids, was faced with an unplanned summer. Avery is an ice hockey player, and with so many activities postponed her doctor decided it was a good time to have the bone spur removal surgery on her foot. That meant she had a cast on her foot for about five weeks, so she could not do any water sports. Luckily she was able to be a CIT for Camp Gundalow (the boat) for two weeks as she loves helping people. For years, she has volunteered with her mother to prepare and serve a dinner monthly for people at the local soup kitchen. Then she and her grandmother learned how to make masks and spent some time after camp making them.
Even though she had never set foot in the high school as a freshman, she committed to playing on the girl’s high school ice hockey team which meant getting up at 4:30AM for practice (as did a parent). Dover, St. Thomas and Winnacunnet high school teamed together to have a girl’s team and Avery was lucky that all practices and a number of games were in Dover. Their team was undefeated until the finals, but a starting forward had broken her collarbone the previous game, and if you follow hockey, that means every line is disrupted as you learn to compete with your line.
Avery still made the best of a challenging year during the pandemic and was still able to find success.
