2008 Youth Leadership Summit Reflection
June 10-12, 2008 - Salt Lake City, UT

My name is Easton Francis, I'm 14 years old and I go to school at Hill Crest Junior High in Murray, UT.
I had the great opportunity to attend a leadership conference at the U of U on June 10 through the 12. We helped out with some of fun service project in the Salt Lake City area. I learned how to film and edit videos, our topic was the presidential election. There were great motivational speakers who had a ton of great ideas on how to improve ourselves and our communities. We stayed in the dorms at the U of U and that was a lot of fun, there was plenty of free time to meet new people and explore the campus. There was an off campus activity were we hung out with lots of kids at a bowling alley and ate pizza all night. I felt it was a great three days of education mixed in with a lot of fun.

The Utah Museum of Fine Arts was the site of the Community of Caring service learning activity during the 2008 Youth Summit at the University of Utah. With the gracious support of the museum and their staff, we spent a day learning about and creating art. With an emphasis on symbols representing our five core values; caring, respect, responsibility, trust and family, we were lead by their docents on a tour of the art museum. After the tour, we learned how to create art, using personal symbols through print making. Later that day, each summit participant had the opportunity to meet children from the Nebo Indian Education Program and lead them on their own tour of the museum and instructed them in print making as well. Both groups of students had a great sense of purpose and fun that day; learning about artistic expression, a new art method and sharing their ideas with each other. Our older students were fine mentors and enabled their younger friends to excel in their endeavors that day.
-Katie Lewis, Community of Caring

Leadership, such a powerful word so often used that the true meaning has gradually disappeared. It is found in each and every one of us, but the desire to promote and use this influential characteristic is not present in all. At the Youth Leadership Conference from June 10-12, the desire was ignited in all participants attending. From the promotional speakers to the enjoyable activities and games, the conference was full of fun times and inspirational ideas.

My name is Hiroshi Aoki and I am a part of the MYCC (Murray Youth Chamber of Commerce). I recently had the opportunity to attend the leadership conference. Going to this conference was an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me and I really enjoyed it.

When our group arrived at the conference on the 10th of June, the spirit of enthusiasm loomed at registration, even though the fun hadn't even commenced. After we checked in, we grabbed our luggage and took it to our dorms, where we would be staying. After unpacking, we quickly left our dorms to head to the opening banquet/barbecue. Upon arriving, there were tons of new faces that I did not know. Feeling like they were outsiders, my instincts were to do as my parents told me and not to talk to strangers. This was probably felt by everyone which explained the awkwardness that resided there.

To break free of all awkwardness, we had a speaker preceding the meal. During this talk, the speaker talked about writing down things, acting as writers. She explained to us that we seemed to not write for all different reasons: scared, didn't feel that we could write, didn't want anyone to read it, etc. However, by the end she had all of us writing in the journals we received and challenged everyone to do the same later that night. This was the basis of our conference, teaching each and every leader to write what they felt, with passion and strength, holding nothing back.

The title of this conference was "A Common Thread Through Service Learning". The whole conference was based on this inspirational theme, teaching each of us that we were all equal and that our purpose needed to be the same, even if our directions may be different.

The biggest aspect that helped promote this theme was Tuesday night's activity. Everyone was separated into different groups, where we got together to talk about diversity. People from the Inclusion Center came to help, support and run these activities. Throughout the rest of the evening, we got to discuss our feelings with support about different ideas that everyone shared. We received the opportunity to express ourselves in a new way, to strangers, without being judged. It was a great solitude of comfort where peace and expression was found. We each had to view ideas in different ways, finding what we felt was more important to us, and discovering what may be more important to others. This activity was so important to everyone, because it brought these strangers closer together; it taught us to get along, helping us discover the leader inside.

2008 Youth Leadership Summit Proud Sponsors and Partnerships
Boys and Girls Clubs, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Center for Community of Caring, Inclusion Center, Learn and Serve America, Learning for Life, Ogden City Schools, Prevention Dimensions, Tanner Center for Nonviolent Human Rights Advocacy, The Lowell Bennion Community Service Center, Utah Campus Compact, Utah Commission on Volunteers, Utah Federation for Youth, Utah PTA, Utah State Office of Education, and YouthLinc.