BY CONNOR BORTZ
Since 1987, the year Joe Cavanagh founded the organization, Youth Frontiers has reached over 1.3 million through their retreats–Kindness, Courage, Respect, Leadership, and Wisdom. These programs are designed for 4-12 grade students and change based upon grade level.
Youth Frontiers is an organization based out of Minnesota that helps districts to build positive communities within the schools.
According to their website, Youth Frontiers is “a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, non-partisan organization that partners with schools to build positive communities where students thrive socially, emotionally and academically.”
Their vision is “to change the way kids treat each other in every hallway, lunch line and classroom of every school in America.”
On Monday February 23, the sophomores–along with a hand-selected group of seniors–attended the Youth Frontiers’ Respect Retreat at Sonrise Church.
It was a full day event that started with a meeting between the leaders (Eric and Todd) and the senior chaperones where they discussed the course they would take for the day ahead.
“Since I had done one of these retreats before [for fifth graders], I knew what to expect,” says Will Grimmer, a senior who attended the event. “But I don’t think others knew how engaged we were going to be with the sophomores throughout the day.”
The seniors didn’t act as typical chaperones; their job was to facilitate small group conversation, actively participate in all games and activities, and to bond with the sophomores.
“It was cool to have the seniors there with us,” says Luke Jacobs, a sophomore who has also attended the Kindness Retreat sponsored by Youth Frontiers.
“The Kindness Retreat was very similar to this one,” adds Jacobs. “But more people were definitely comfortable speaking when it came time to share our thoughts.”
“I felt like the whole experience was really relatable, and there were a lot of things [Todd and Eric] said that I realized I could work on,” says Grimmer.
In the morning, the students played three interactive games where both seniors and sophomores participated in activities together that were meant to help the more timid participants branch out.
Small, diversely populated groups helped the sophomores branch out and talk to people with whom they don’t normally interact.
“But I think the coolest part of the retreat was getting to see how the 10th graders changed throughout the day and how they seemed to grow as people,” says Grimmer. “I feel like most of the people in that room were positively affected.”
Grimmer believes the students need more of these kind of retreats, especially early on in high school. “I wish we would’ve had something like this when we were sophomores,” says Will Grimmer. “I mean they have just over two years left, and we [seniors] are on our way out.”
“I guess it is too late for us, but it was cool to see them come together as a class especially since they have so much time left in high school,” concludes Grimmer.
