I said two weeks ago when I wrote about the Brandon Groveland Youth Assistance Youth Recognition Awards, which was on April 25, that it happened to be the same day as Challenge Day at the High school.
That is by far one of my favorite days as a BGYA board member. I love volunteering for it every year.
The goal of Challenge Day is to help teens learn to connect with each other and give them a space to get rid of masks and roles and to express themselves. It helps to increase self-esteem, encourage positive peer support, and reduce bullying. Their slogan is the Mahatma Gandhi quote, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”
At the end of the day, we’re exhausted. The facilitator always offers to write a note to get us volunteers out of cooking dinner or cleaning. And even though it’s exhausting, it is one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.
We adult volunteers spend the whole day at Brandon High School with up to 100 high school students, and every time I volunteer, the day is different. We start with fun ice breakers, playing high energy games, and dancing like absolute fools because if the students see us being open and unbothered, they’re more willing to express themselves. The facilitators tell their stories, and they model how to be open and honest and real.
Then we get to spend time in what they call ‘small family groups’ which consists of one or two adults and five or six students. We all get to share in our groups, open and honest, and it’s completely confidential so I won’t say what any of my students said. What I will say is I love them, and I’m proud of them for opening up and being authentically themselves. Listening to those kids talk about their traumas, their families and their friends, and support each other, is so inspiring.
Later in the day, we do an activity called Cross the Line. This is done in complete silence, but the facilitator reads out statements, such as ‘cross the line if you’ve ever lost a parent’ or ‘cross the line is you or a family member or close friend has contemplated suicide’ and everyone who the statement applies to crosses the line. It allows everyone to tell a little bit of their story without saying a word.
This is usually the point in the day when everyone is crying, and one of the adult volunteers put it best when she told us later that she didn’t think she would be comforted by children that day. But at that time, we’re all just people, not students or adults.
The best comparison I’ve seen for the day is the movie “The Breakfast Club,” as all labels are shed for the day and the students learn that everyone is just a person doing the best they can with the cards they’re dealt in life. And through it, we use the sign language for love to show support to each other.
I could talk forever about Challenge day, because it is an experience like no other. When people ask me what it’s about, I have no clue how to explain it. Last year, Editor David was asked to volunteer for Challenge Day in Goodrich, and I insisted he do it because it’s something he should experience to be able to report on it. And when he came back, he understood completely what I meant.
These children are going through the worst things a person can go through: family loss, bullying, depression, anxiety, addiction, and every other thing that you can think of that can go wrong in their lives. The purpose of being an adult volunteer is to show these students that we went through or are going through similar things, and we’re still here. We survived, made it to adulthood, and they can too.
And we can still be a community of people that love and support each other, because we’re never alone. And if kids can learn that lesson, adults can too.