Leadership Seminar Reflection

One of the way I have contributed and impacted my community is through and being a part of an organization called Wisconsin Leadership Seminar (WILS). Every year the majority of Wisconsin high schools selects one sophomore student to participate in the Wisconsin Leadership Seminar. Sturgeon Bay High School elected to send me to this prestigious opportunity my sophomore year. During the seminar, I improved my leadership skills, while also making friends I am still in touch with today. The best part of this experience was being able to grow and connect with other future leaders. Since this organization helped me grow so much, I have stayed connected with it by attending every reunion possible, going back to be on the operations team and become

One of the key concepts at WILS is volunteering and giving back to the community. Therefore, no matter where the reunion is held there is at least a half of a day volunteering and giving. In the last reunion held about a month ago, we had such a big group of volunteers that we had to split into two. The group that I was in went to the local homeless shelter. Once we got there, there was a list of tasks that they had hoped we could help with. While talking to the leader of the homeless shelter, he requested that my group focus on getting the mail orders ready. Each year they send out over 500 calendars to the surrounding area as their main way of collecting funding. At the previous reunion, I volunteered at a local women’s shelter. At the local women’s shelter I participated in pins, magnets, posters, pin-wheels and other crafts for the upcoming women’s awareness week. Since I have been a part of WILS for almost two years now, I have been a part of a lot volunteer work. Another example is cleaning horse stalls at equestrian farms. This was super fun because we were helping an organization that uses horse to connect with individuals with disabilities. Moreover, I have sorted clothes at goodwill, cleaned and sorted food pantry and I know many more opportunities are yet to

The way I did this was going back to the next Annual Seminar to help the incoming group of leaders. I was a part of the Operations team this past summer. This team worked behind the scenes to make sure everything ran smoothly. For example, my team mates and I packed lunches for the 250 kids going out to volunteer. In addition, I assisted the treasure with all of their duties. Since the treasure job is to make sure WILS is economically stable, he/she has to do a lot of work by maintain the WILS store. Therefore, I worked hand and hand with the treasure to ensure the best for WILS. One of the first task the treasure and I did, is sort through all the current products and the sort through all the newly ordered clothes. After that, I wrote a poster with all the merchandise available and the prices. Over the course of the weekend, the treasurer and I put down and put back up the WILS store in convenient locations at least four times. Having the opportunity to return and volunteer my services to help the weekend run smoothly, was a really gratifying experience and made me realize how much a difference I could make by helping this Annual Seminar. That weekend I just did not help one community, I helped ensure that student leaders had a great weekend, which allowed them to go back into their individual communities and make a difference.

In summary,