By KELLY URBAN
The Second Mile in State College wants high school students to go the extra mile to improve their communities.
The nonprofit organization will host its annual four-day leadership institute for high school sophomores from across the state on March 21 through March 24 and challenge them to hone their resources and talents to become leaders.
“This is a diverse group of students coming here, and they will develop a game plan for a community service project and then go back home and implement their project,” said Carol Pioli, director of development for Second Mile.
“They will come back to us in a years time to present their projects.”
There are 60 schools attending with each school sending five students and one faculty adviser.
Sophomores from Cambria Heights, Westmont and Somerset Area high schools will represent Cambria and Somerset counties.
“We want these students to all work together as a team rather than individuals,” Pioli said.
“The goal is to work toward inner group harmony and once they leave here we hope they will have a greater respect for the value of community service.”
She added that past projects have left lasting impressions and some are still in place years after students attended the institute.
For example, in York County students started a book drive to benefit Hershey Medical Center and in Potter County teens created a suicide-prevention group after seeing a need in their community for this type of service.
“In Hazelton, students noticed that although the high school and vo-tech were beside each other, there was no interaction between the groups. So
for their project they built a veranda on a piece of property between the buildings and added park benches and did landscaping,” Pioli said.
“It was a great idea and it has brought the students together.”
In addition to brainstorming project ideas, students also will spend their time in personal development, conflict resolution, communication and building bridges workshops.
“They will need to come up with ways to develop their project from the marketing to fundraising, how to execute it and the proper channels they will need to go through like presenting their idea to the school board,” Pioli said.
There is no cost to the school districts to attend and room and board and meals are covered by Second Mile.
