Leigh Youth Advisory Committee Visits Community Leaders in Albion, Meets with Nebraska Community Foundation Leaders
By: Jessica Hoffman, a junior at Leigh High School
In the month of May, some senior and junior members of the Leigh Youth Advisory Committee were able to take their annual field trip to visit a nearby town of their choice that is making strides to improve their community. In a fun-filled day learning about community leadership, community development, and entrepreneurship, this year’s group chose to visit the community of Albion.
10 students made the trip to Albion with Leigh Youth Advisory Committee leader Mrs. Justine Fischer. Later, the group met up with the Leigh School for a two-hour community leadership session with the entire Youth Advisory Committee. These experiences were great to keep the youth motivated on continuing to make Leigh great.
To begin the day, Lori Krohn with the Albion Chamber of Commerce met the group in Albion and coordinated their day. She gave the YAC kids a tour of Albion, so they could learn about how they can make their community a better place. They met up with entrepreneurs and community developers from Albion. In total, they made six stops before heading back to school. They went to Applied Connective Technologies, Niewohner Arena, Hwy 14 Brewery, Boutique 29eleven, Albion Economic Development, and concluded their day with lunch at “The J” where they met with the owner of Palmer Eye Care. They had a great experience and learned a lot about how they can improve Leigh and become future community leaders.
They then departed from Albion to meet up with the rest of the YAC kids at 2. KC Belitz, the Chief Operating Officer of the Nebraska Community Foundation and Lisa Kaslon from the University of Nebraska Extension talked to the whole group and did some activities with them. They found the strengths in Leigh, came up with a list of assets that bring new opportunities to Leigh, communicated their own personal strengths with each other, and did a group-building activity that relates to how a community works.
YAC President Makenna Held said, “Going to Albion for our YAC trip was an awesome time. We learned a lot about ways to get the community involved and things we can incorporate into Leigh to help our continue to grow and thrive. The leadership session with KC and Lisa was also great and gave our entire group a chance to get involved!”
YAC Trip 2022 Caption:
Nebraska Community Foundation Chief Operating Officer KC Belitz and University of Nebraska Extension's Lisa Kaslon spent the afternoon teaching Leigh YAC students about community leadership and how to build on Leigh's best assets and their own best assets.
YAC Trip 2 Caption:
Members of the Leigh Youth Advisory Committee meet with Jeff Jarecki and Brock Kuester of the Albion Economic Development Corporation