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In Her Own Words: Jazz Moreno
9/6/2019 9:49:00 AM | Softball
Catcher Jazz Moreno's break from school was one with three diverse experiences, from softball umpiring to volunteering in South Africa to working in a cancer-research lab. The redshirt junior from Elk Grove, Calif., talked about her summer in her own words.
This summer was a very memorable one, to say the least. The first half consisted of umpiring and interning at a startup company named Silbo. Silbo is an upstarting marketplace for officials to be able to manage schedules and help leagues organize and assign officials more efficiently. My teammate Rachel Abboud and I were taking on the Raleigh/Durham area by storm when it came to umpiring. One could argue we were the most popular umpires in the business. When we were not umpiring or training, we were working on spreadsheets at Silbo, thanks to former Duke teammate, Jill Ferraro, who works at this company. She went from our teammate to our boss. Our job consisted of finding more leagues and contacts in areas that Silbo had not made connections with yet.
During mid-June I left for South Africa to participate in the ACES program. It was a trip of a lifetime. For the first two weeks, we held a sports camp for children in the township of Zola. The first half of the day we would work on the fundamentals of the sport we were teaching that day and then in the afternoon, we would have an academic workshop. The last week of the trip we worked with adults in the community and taught them computer, interview, and first aid skills. Looking back on my experience, I would say my favorite day of the program was definitely the first day of the sports camp. The township of Zola is just outside of Gordon's Bay. As soon as we arrived in a van, over 20 kids were surrounding us chanting, "TEACHA TEACHA" with the biggest smiles on their faces. They were so welcoming and excited for us to be there. I learned so much from them, sometimes I felt that they made more of an impact on me than I did on them. They taught me to be more selfless, and to never think about what you lack in your life, but appreciate what you do have. What shocked me about the community was that they were so willing to include us in their culture, from learning the language, trying different meals, and helping us know about their daily lives. They were so open and wanted us to know everything there was to know to better understand them. I will always be extremely grateful for this opportunity Duke gave me this summer.
I returned to North Carolina the second week of July, back in the thick of it with all my teammates who were here for Summer Session 2. Along with softball I gained a position in Dr. Kwatra's Glioblastoma Lab. I will be observing and growing patient's tumor cells and testing different types of drugs to see which drug is the most efficient in breaking down and killing the tumor cells. I will continue working in the lab during the school year as well.
My teammates and I have all been here training and taking classes to get a jumpstart on the new year. Our team grew closer than ever before. We had a lot of team bonding activities throughout the summer including many trips to the Farmers' Market on Saturday mornings, a trip to the Quarry, go-karting, and some pool days. In addition, there were a lot of Bachelorette watch parties. We all took our training this summer very seriously and had a lot of days filled with softball. Our team is extremely excited to get after it with our new coaching staff and take on the new season!
This summer was a very memorable one, to say the least. The first half consisted of umpiring and interning at a startup company named Silbo. Silbo is an upstarting marketplace for officials to be able to manage schedules and help leagues organize and assign officials more efficiently. My teammate Rachel Abboud and I were taking on the Raleigh/Durham area by storm when it came to umpiring. One could argue we were the most popular umpires in the business. When we were not umpiring or training, we were working on spreadsheets at Silbo, thanks to former Duke teammate, Jill Ferraro, who works at this company. She went from our teammate to our boss. Our job consisted of finding more leagues and contacts in areas that Silbo had not made connections with yet.
During mid-June I left for South Africa to participate in the ACES program. It was a trip of a lifetime. For the first two weeks, we held a sports camp for children in the township of Zola. The first half of the day we would work on the fundamentals of the sport we were teaching that day and then in the afternoon, we would have an academic workshop. The last week of the trip we worked with adults in the community and taught them computer, interview, and first aid skills. Looking back on my experience, I would say my favorite day of the program was definitely the first day of the sports camp. The township of Zola is just outside of Gordon's Bay. As soon as we arrived in a van, over 20 kids were surrounding us chanting, "TEACHA TEACHA" with the biggest smiles on their faces. They were so welcoming and excited for us to be there. I learned so much from them, sometimes I felt that they made more of an impact on me than I did on them. They taught me to be more selfless, and to never think about what you lack in your life, but appreciate what you do have. What shocked me about the community was that they were so willing to include us in their culture, from learning the language, trying different meals, and helping us know about their daily lives. They were so open and wanted us to know everything there was to know to better understand them. I will always be extremely grateful for this opportunity Duke gave me this summer.
I returned to North Carolina the second week of July, back in the thick of it with all my teammates who were here for Summer Session 2. Along with softball I gained a position in Dr. Kwatra's Glioblastoma Lab. I will be observing and growing patient's tumor cells and testing different types of drugs to see which drug is the most efficient in breaking down and killing the tumor cells. I will continue working in the lab during the school year as well.
My teammates and I have all been here training and taking classes to get a jumpstart on the new year. Our team grew closer than ever before. We had a lot of team bonding activities throughout the summer including many trips to the Farmers' Market on Saturday mornings, a trip to the Quarry, go-karting, and some pool days. In addition, there were a lot of Bachelorette watch parties. We all took our training this summer very seriously and had a lot of days filled with softball. Our team is extremely excited to get after it with our new coaching staff and take on the new season!
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