Light shines on student leaders

PALMER — Communities need effective young leaders, and this week a small group of Alaska middle- and high-school students is training to fill those roles.

Beau Bassett, master trainer for Alaska’s Points of Light Youth Leadership Institute (PYLI), has been mentoring youth groups at annual leadership camp for the past 11 years in Anchorage. This year, Bassett decided Mat-Su Valley teens should reap the rewards of team leadership as well.

PYLI is a national 50-hour student leadership training program designed to help develop youth leadership. This includes community service projects organizers hope will benefit youth involvement with social issues in their communities.

Monday morning outside Mat-Su College’s campus in Palmer, Bassett, along with volunteer Paul Kelson, walked the 13- to 18-year-olds through their first exercise about the importance of trust.

“This gives the students tools to be able to make a contribution to their community,” Bassett said, taking a break from coaching the “Blind Trust” exercise. “We need to get them interested in community service and on a career path where they can implement what they’ve learned here in the real world.”

Marcus Farquhar, 16, is a student at the Mat-Su Career and Technical High School. This is his second visit at PYLI, working this year as a mentor for new students in the program.

Farquhar said last summer he won the Spirit of Community award in Washington, D.C., after completing the PYLI program and working a semester at North Star Behavioral Health System helping troubled teens learn math and science through robotics.

“I thought it would be a great opportunity to find out how to do a community service project from start to finish,” Farquhar said. “I had a blast last year. The best way to learn is to teach. That’s been my philosophy on everything.”

Marya Schmidt, 16, a Houston High School student, is also a member of the Mat-Su Youth Court. Interested in community service and building her college résumé, Schmidt said she enjoys helping people wherever she can.

“I need more community service hours,” Schmidt said. “But I wanted to have an impact on people in a way that no one else does.”

Schmidt said she hopes to study law and government at Harvard Law School after graduation and hopes her week at PYLI will help her achieve her goals.

Bassett said there are other incentives that drive participation. Students who sign up qualify for high school elective credit, scholarship opportunities and earn a positive mark for college applications.

“What they’re learning is what most adults don’t get,” Bassett said of the benefit of developing leadership qualities in young people. “There are exceptional tools to helping them design service programs in their community. Young people live in a competitive world where it’s about being stronger than the next guy. Using this model we show how everyone wins and the needs of the community are met.”

Learning valuable lessons about the social problems in their communities, 18 students from around Alaska are spending this week in and outside of PYLI’s classroom.

Early Monday, students broke into groups of three (called a “trust trio”) and later nine (a “trust circle”). One person stood in the middle of each group and leaned from side to side, trusting the others in their group to stop their fall.

Sponsored by Prudential Jack White Vista Real Estate Spirit of Community Initiative, the Alaska Association of Secondary School Principals, the Red Cross of Alaska and the Points of Point and Hands On Network, PYLI’s Mat-Su youth program showcased eighth- to 12th-grade students from Dillingham, Aniak, Wasilla, Big Lake, Eagle River and Palmer.

Bassett said the PYLI Youth Institute’s goal is to give youth the skills needed to design, organize and implement high-quality volunteer service projects themselves. Since its inception in 1998, more than 650 Alaska youth have graduated from the PYLI Youth Institute. Anchorage’s PYLI program ended its week-long run last week with 15 students working on a service project to touch up troubled environmental areas of Anchorage’s coastal trails.

PYLI has three distinct components: Five days of student service leadership training, a community service learning project and a graduation ceremony in October on National Make A Difference Day.

Later this week, local students will participate in other leadership-building components like a blind polygon, a maze and tower exercise and learn modules, including lessons on creative leadership, communications, diversity, community mapping, fact-finding, goal setting and decision making. It all leads up to Friday’s final community project, yet to be determined.

To learn more about the Points of Light Youth Leadership Institute, visit Pyli.org or call 561-6630.

Contact J.J. Harrier at valleylife@frontiersman.com, or 352-2269.