Arriving at the first Satell Circle I was a little nervous, to be honest. I think we all were. We were all clinging anxiously to our cell phones, checking them every minute or two hoping for a text that would allow us to concentrate on something other than each other. That usually happens when you put a pile of teenagers together in a new situation. I looked for a familiar face and found none, so I sat down next to a boy in a yellow hoodie. He said "hello" and I returned the salutation. Then another person said "hello" then another, then another. Soon, I found myself putting my phone away and introducing myself with growing ease.

We were greeted by Ross and Annie with a powerpoint that explained to us exactly what we had gotten ourselves into. The mystery of who gave the Satell Teen Fellowship for Leadership and Social Activism the "Satell" was revealed and with that the formalities were over, the awkwardness was released and from there on out we started acting like a group of friends; a team.

We then each picked our very own Pez Dispenser (among the masses were bambi, hello kitty, goofy, etc). We had to put our faith in Annie when she told us to close our eyes and stick our hand into the box full of Pez and trust her that there was not a small family of flesh eating crabs waiting to dine on our fingers at the bottom.

After loading up our Pez dispensers and eating a lasagna dinner (what would soon become our signature meal) we played some games. We watched the boys learn about the evils of pantyhose, learned how to eat oreos off of our faces without actually touching them with our hands, blew cups off of a table with balloons, wrapped each other in toilet paper (friends you wrap in toilet paper are friends you keep forever, obviously) and wasted a lot of crepe paper.

After that we said our goodbyes and headed home listing the names of the people we'd talked to in our heads so we wouldn't forget, and thinking of what we were going to wear to "look money" on Sunday at the inaugural reception!

Partnering with Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia and the Satell Family Foundation