HIGH HOPES=BIG DREAMS

Camp High Hopes is a subsidized summer day camp funded through the YMCA's We Build People campaign. Jessica Russell and Sharlene Provilus, director and head counselor at the A.E. Finley Camp High Hopes, said, “We should do this.” So they did.

August 4 at the YMCA Association's Resource Center, two dozen Camp High Hopes campers, dressed sharply in business attire, met the eyes of college recruiters from ten local colleges and universities. They put out their hands for a handshake and then went with purpose to the business of talking education, college education.

Camp High Hopes College Day

Over the seven previous weeks of Camp High Hopes, Sharlene and her co-counselor, A.J. Johnson, coached and evaluated each of these students on etiquette, listening skills, leadership and an entire menu of skills for success.

The college reps reviewed the evaluations and grade point averages and then interviewed each student. The conversations were real and the students left with an envelope marked either ACCEPTED or DEFERRED.

The emotions were also real. Some students pumped the air and celebrated, others sat in serious discussions with their friends talking about the need to get higher grades to make their dream school a possibility in the future.

The whole experience really was a dream come true.
A dream that Jessica and Sharlene and A.J. made happen. Their vision has put a target in the future for these two dozen middle schoolers and that target is acceptance into college.

"It was like watching the light go on in two dozen pairs of eyes and with that light, a shot was fired at a target," said Patti Bryce, Finley's Outreach Director. "If you were lucky enough to be there, you know how I feel."

We cannot say thank you enough to these leaders!

Spring Break Offers Lasting Lessons

This article by Stacy Chandler appeared in the May 17 edition of the News & Observer's Thumbs Up section.

While many of her classmates were looking forward to getting a tan on spring break, Kim Geiger was eager to get something else during her time off from school: perspective.

With about 40 fellow members of the Leaders Club from YMCAs across the Triangle, she traveled to Washington, D.C., for a volunteer mission to help that city's hungry and homeless.



Feeding Others

 
The volunteers packed meals and toiletries and served dinners, but their work went beyond handouts. They also engaged with the people they helped, sitting down for one-on-one conversations that helped pass the time but also told the stories of lives gone off-course.



YMCA Spring Break

 "Over my trip I learned that these people grew up maybe not just like I did, but similar, and one bad choice and they ended up like this," Kim, 16, said a couple weeks after returning to her home in Cary. "So I learned that these people were not any less of a human than I was, and I really appreciated that fact by the time I was heading home."

The Leaders Club students worked hard during their trip, but Kim said the hardest part of their mission was when the work was over. 

"The hardest part was walking away," she said. "We would be doing something that was really beneficial and really making a person happy, and then the activity was over and they would go back to being on the streets, not knowing when their next meal would be."

One night, she added, the volunteers cooked dinner for a group of homeless people.

"When we walked home that night, back to our hostel," she said, "we saw some of the people who had eaten dinner with us still with their nametags on, sleeping on benches."
 
Heartwrenching as that scene was for Kim, she knows she gained as much from the trip as the people she was able to help.

"I feel that if I'm helping another person and helping to benefit another one's life, I've done something with my life that's meaningful," she said.

The YMCA of the Triangle's Leaders Club provides middle and high school students with opportunities to receive leadership training that enhances personal growth while teaching the importance of social responsibility and service to others. Click here to learn more.