11 students in REACT and 3 adult chaperones participated in a leadership conference at Ohio Dominican University over the summer. Students experienced staying in a college dorm and eating meals in a dining hall for 4 days. The leadership conference was called Y2Y or Youth 2 Youth and focused on drug and alcohol prevention and having fun drug free.
Two seniors from REACT, Ainsleigh Landino and Riley Schmidt went early to be youth staff for Y2Y. They participated in two days of training and planning for the next four days of the conference. REACT students met people from all over the country, attended their choice of workshops and participated in fun events every night. Fun night events consisted of a dance, sports tournament and a carnival. Each youth and adult participant had a separate family group where they did fun activities, icebreakers, and had deep conversations about gun violence, drug use, and mental health. Students had a lot of fun leadership opportunities at the conference and could bring it back to REACT and even the whole town.
Junior Isabella Johnson, who attended the conference said it was a lot of fun, and she loved meeting new people. She found it enlightening, and it showed her what the different issues were across the U.S. Junior Kasey Allin loved the connections at Y2Y, the dance, and the togetherness.
Junior Kierra Baker enjoyed making new friends and the meals. She also liked how Y2Y talked about natural highs. Natural highs is happiness that comes from something that a person loves to do instead of drugs.
Senior Ainsleigh Landino said that during the training she planned out the next four days to provide everyone with the best family group experience. The youth and adult staff went through the scenarios that could happen such as someone in your family group not wanting to talk and how they could address that. Ainsleigh discussed that by the fourth meeting of her family group everyone was having fun talking to each other and playing games. They would have discussions about conference speakers and activities. She feels that being a youth staff member was exhausting, but it was a great experience. She is most likely going to do it again next year. She also feels that the whole conference was meaningful, and everybody was crying during the last debrief of the youth and adult staff.
Senior Riley Schmidt mentioned that the last night of Y2Y was her favorite because all the staff hung out until one in the morning and made messages with chalk. She added how meeting new people was so cool. She liked hearing other people’s stories.
Sophomore Anadaly Lopez discussed that she loved going with REACT. She said the group is close. She felt included, and everyone was friendly. Freshman Hayden Darr loved the energy at Y2Y. He could tell when he walked in he was going to have so much fun. He appreciated the fun events, especially the dance.
Senior Maddie Sacta said it was great to see leaders from different communities. It was her second time going to Y2Y. She enjoyed seeing the reactions of the people who haven’t been before.
Sophomore Whittney Treubig also had a good experience at the leadership conference. She made a lot of friends, she had a good time in her family group and at the carnival.
Leader of REACT Ben Eaves said it was amazing and cool to see REACT students getting involved and making connections with people from all over the country. He liked family group and how students had interesting stories from their family groups.
Shelby Mehmet, program coordinator of Clinton Human Services enjoyed seeing students excited and happy to be at Y2Y. Shelby also appreciated REACT coming together and getting closer as a group. She feels like Y2Y was a great experience. The conference created opportunities for like-minded people to come together and to meet new people.