Next Step to Being the Change

Tomorrow Yvonne and Rich Dutra-St. John fly into Redmond, Oregon, from San Francisco to facilitate our Next Step to Being the Change Workshop we are holding this Friday, Saturday and Sunday. What a special treat to have the founders of Challenge Day here. It’s “Serendipity”.

We’ll have 40 adults (parents, teachers, counselors, community members) and 20 teenagers (representing various schools) participating. The vision is to create a core group of 60 people who are passionate about bringing programs such as Challenge Day and the Be the Change Movement to our schools and communities.

There are a lot of last minute things to be handled so my post today is very brief.

I can hardly wait to take this next step in our journey to put the pieces of the puzzle in place that will energize our families, schools, and neighborhoods to become Spark Champions for our kids.

Encouraging Teens to Find Their Spark

Encouraging teens to find their sparks is a community affair. It’s pretty amazing because adults can find their own sparks in the process.

Someplace I read the words

You were just waiting for someone to encourage you to be the “more” that you are, weren’t you?

How perfect for what we’re up to ……………… creating the space and place for people of all ages to discover that they are special, they are unique and that they have something very important to contribute to the world.

Participate in your community’s Spark Champions team. If one doesn’t exist, create one.

How?

First, go online to www.Search-Institute.org and print a copy of the 40 Developmental Assets for Adolescents, and order Benson’s book Sparks: How Parents Can Ignite the Hidden Strengths of Teenagers.

As you expand your team, ask each person to do the same. (I don’t lend my books out as I highlight, underline, and attach Post-It Notes to whatever I want to refer to quickly, and I don’t want to influence others as to what they feel is most important to them.)

Develop a vision of what you want to see happen in your schools and communities as you create your team. I created Serendipity West Foundation as a result of a seminar called Life Directions Intensive (http://www.peakpotentials.com/new/courses_camps/ld.html - please use Promo Code: 233754, if you want to explore this seminar).

One of the things we did in the seminar was to draw a picture of what our mission/vision would look like. I drew several pictures on the page, including one of a bunch of stick figures at a school participating in a Challenge Day, and another depicting a project the kids might create as a result.

I took this picture around to everyone and said “This is what I want to do and I have NO IDEA as to how to do it. Who do you know that I can talk with who might be able to guide me?” I explored many leads and ultimately met Arlene Gibson who was so aligned with what I was up to that she became my angel and my mentor.

And now we have scheduled our first four Challenge Days at Redmond High School and Elton Gregory Middle School the first week in January 2009. And we are hosting a Next Step to Being the Change Workshop next weekend, December 5,6, and 7th for 20 teens and 40 adults who want to be Spark Champions even though they don’t know yet about sparks. And Sisters Middle School and Sisters High School, as well as Pilot Butte Middle School have submitted their applications for Challenge Days.

OH, WOW. Do you know what that means? We will be DIRECTLY IMPACTING OVER A THOUSAND KIDS and many others indirectly, and our Spark Champions team will be their support them as they find their sparks.

WHOOPPEE!!!!!!!!!!

You can do this too. Let me know how I can help you.

MY LEGACY

I am celebrating my 95th birthday and am the guest of honor at Central Oregon’s 20th annual Be the Change Celebration, held at the Deschutes County Fairgrounds, attended by thousands and thousands and thousands of teens, their parents and their friends who have been positively impacted by the hundreds of Challenge Days that have been held throughout the last 25 years in our Central Oregon schools.

There are hundreds of booths at the Fairgrounds with exhibits and examples of the remarkable inventions and creations that are the result of the careful nurturing of our children over the years that started with a few Challenge Days in a few schools in 2008.

Challenge Day’s Be The Change Movement is now supported by every person and business in our many communities and our example of school and community involvement has spread throughout the state and beyond. The seeds were sown early in 2006 with the discovery, at age 68, that I had a purpose and that was To Awaken Teens to Their Magnificence and Power, Creating Bold New Futures. One of my favorite (and now famous) sayings is: Each of us has a piece of the puzzle. Once you put your own piece in place, a thousand others can then be placed.

In January 2006, I put my piece of the puzzle in place (www.SerendipityWest.org). Shortly thereafter Arlene, my mentor and angel, put her piece in place, and Terri, a mom with a vision, put her piece in place. Together we created the Central Oregon Circle of Change. Look at our handiwork now - thousands of teens and adults have discovered their passions and are putting their own pieces in place. What a marvelous world it is.

Each school year thousands more teens, supported by their communities, attend a remarkable one-day program that “provides youth and their communities with experiential workshops and programs that demonstrate the possibility of love and connection through the celebration of diversity, truth and full expression” (Challenge Day’s Mission – www.ChallengeDay.org). Be the Change Teams in each of the schools and communities support the teens as they explore the possibilities that exist in their lives as they think outside the box.

Our pilot after-school program, created in 2009 with Pilot Butte Middle School Principal Stephanie Bennett (now U.S. Secretary of Education), has been duplicated at every elementary, middle and high school in Central Oregon. No longer do parents and youngsters wonder how to productively fill the day when school is out. Community involvement has established community centers in each of the towns across Oregon, many of which are at the schools themselves. Volunteers from across the communities and the state share their areas of expertise and the kids have opportunities to explore diverse skill sets in their search for their passion and their own piece of the puzzle.

Serendipity West, my dream home, has become a gathering place for the many extraordinary people that come to share, learn and celebrate what we have created. I receive strength from my talks with “Grandfather Tree” (a grand old Ponderosa Pine, full of wisdom) and as I sit on the Grande Veranda and watch the sun set behind the mountains, I know I have found my serenity and my solitude. I continue to allow the Universe to shower me with miracles every day. I am at peace with myself and with life.

I have been instrumental in impacting thousands (and thousands and thousands) of lives. I made a difference. Life is good.