A local leadership academy that exclusively focused on adults before the COVID-19 pandemic has added its first high school participants.
Leadership Development Academy has operated for 20 years in Rock County, offering a nine-month, community-based program for adult business, nonprofit and private sector leaders. This year, it expanded upon that, adding five high school seniors from Craig High School in Janesville, Milton High School and Turner High School in the town of Beloit who will work hand in hand through May alongside 30 adult participants.
Leadership Development Academy Executive Director Jamie Karns said the program was opened to the five high school students in September.
The participants divide into small breakout groups to plan a community outreach project. As part of that, the teens are learning how to work with adults, how to approach the broader community for fundraising and other support, and learning how to make connections.
“They will share what they worked on throughout the year in May, and they will have a graduation ceremony with that,†Karns said.
Karns said the idea of involving youth came up before the COVID-19 pandemic, but the idea and the program in general went on hiatus as businesses shut down in 2020. She said a subsequent idea for a mini high school program also never took off.
But as the pandemic waned, the academyÃÛèÖÊÓƵ board of directors resumed a push for high school involvement, reaching out to adults who had gone through the nine-month program and to different area high schools to gauge interest in bringing teens and adults together in the same space.
They found that there was, in fact, interest.
How it works
Karns said the youth and adult participants meet together one Friday of each month for nine hours day. Each monthly session builds on the last, she said.
“The first session is really about finding out about who they are. We do real colors, they learn about what their color is and what the strengths and weaknesses are of those colors. ItÃÛèÖÊÓƵ more personality temperament. And then the second session we go to a ropes course and we just do team-building all day,†she said.
“They work with the group they have been assigned but also with others as well. It challenges the communications and relying on other people,†Karns added.
Karns said in subsequent sessions that they start looking at different challenges in the community. She said one current community challenge in Rock County, for instance, is housing, particularly the lack of affordable housing.
“I think that was mind-blowing for everyone; we are just very removed from that,†she said. “Especially when everybody participating is employed or are just not dealing with those day-to-day struggles.â€
Once community challenges are identified, she said the small groups choose a project and begin to work on those. She said this is the point where groups start getting into the “meat†of the program, setting fundraising goals and presenting to local economic development groups.
“Now itÃÛèÖÊÓƵ public speaking, being out in front of a group and putting that together,†she said.
She said youth learn about their community and gain valuable skills including learning how to sell themselves to employers.
“The goal … is that they fall in love with the community and they come back (after college). That they really see that investing in the community is worth it,†she said. “That is for all our … adults as well because we want the talent to stay here.â€
She said scholarships are available for the youth and that the group also raises money to make sure the high school participants pay nothing to be part of it.
Community outreach
Milton High School senior Jaxon Lee said his group will be helping out YWCA Rock County by fixing up a room at its headquarters at 1735 S. Washington St., in Janesville.
He said they’ll be fundraising, securing volunteers and actually going over to work on the room.
“Whatever we don’t use moneywise, we are going to donate it to the YWCA,†he said.
William Hentschel is a senior at Milton High School. His community outreach program is generating building awareness and fixing up the Chestnut House, a program through Craig High School that helps students with special needs prepare for life after high school.
And Craig High School senior Katarina Dries said her group has chosen to work with ECHO to raise $15,000 and produce a marketing video for the local food pantry and social service nonprofit.
Building relationships
Kelly Bedessem, a past academy participant and parent of a current youth participant, said the structure of the program, with youth and adults working together, is important. The youth get to work with members of the community and build relationships with them, she said.
She said the kids learn from the adults but also teach them.
“I think that it is good for all of them to have that experience to work with a group of adults that normally would not have that opportunity.â€
Lee said being a part of the program has helped him come out of his shell and to talk more.
“Adults listen to us and value what we have to say,†he said.
Hentschel said it has also prepared him for “the real world†by helping him learn how to plan. He said working through steps in a process and working with a team will help him in college and his career.
Dries said the most important things she has learned are how to connect with adults in the community and how to ask how you can help your community.
“Also, having that experience of being treated like an adult, being able to say ‘I have something to contribute,’†she said. “Just being able to make an impact.â€
The groups will be announcing their community outreach project fundraisers in the next couple of months.
