Eleven Chautauqua County middle schoolers in SUNY Jamestown Community College’s GEAR UP program participated in the NYGEAR UP Power Of Youth Summer Leadership Academy at Wells College from June 29-July 2.
The Power of Youth team, along with Cool Speak, a leading youth engagement company, shared motivational presentations, team building activities, small group discussions, and individual personal development assignments with soon-to-be eighth grade students from around New York state during the three-day event.
Nichole Segrue, JCC GEAR UP program director, and parent Michele Piglowski accompanied nine students from Dunkirk City School District and two from Jamestown Public Schools to the Wells campus in the Finger Lakes region.
Power Of Youth Summer Leadership Academy at Wells College.
GEAR UP is an acronym for Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs. The New York State Higher Education Services Corporation was awarded a $28 million GEAR UP grant by the U.S. Department of Education to increase college readiness and success for more than 6,200 low-income New York state students.
Led by Segrue and associate director Erin Caruits, JCC’s GEAR UP program works with class of 2028 participants in Jamestown and Dunkirk to provide opportunities for academic success, and to promote a college-going culture for students. Opportunities include tutoring, mentoring, counseling, college visits, workshops, and parental support.
“We are going to be supporting them for the next six years to increase their awareness of education and career opportunities and prepare them to enter postsecondary education,” Segrue said.
Segrue said the keynote presentations, workshops and interactive activities during the leadership academy were designed to address different styles of learning while increasing and supplementing students’ “cultural wealth.”
Program objectives included helping students achieve personal and academic success, increasing motivation and persistence in students, producing active leaders, and encouraging teamwork.
Dunkirk student Sean Piglowski, son of Michele, said his favorite activity was “Walking on Sunshine,” a team-building exercise where a person had to walk three feet off the ground on a web rope that was pulled tight by others.
“I had to trust these other people to make sure that they were also leaning back with me to keep the person on the rope up,” Sean said.
Amerilex Arizmendi, a classmate of Sean’s at Dunkirk, said she liked the team challenges most, including one where groups had to build a catapult with popsicle sticks and a spoon, with the aim of upending a tower of cups by flinging a large marshmallow.
“I honestly love doing activities,” she said.
Arizmendi, who joined GEAR UP to learn about what it takes to go to college, also talked about a fun dinner in which students dressed up “to look cute and eat fancy food.”
Michele Piglowski said the students from Dunkirk and Jamestown were put on teams with students from other schools.
“I got to meet other people from all around New York state,” Sean said about one of his favorite parts of the event.
Michele added: “I loved that they grouped them with other kids that they didn’t know to be able to trust them with things, too.”
Students and chaperones stayed in the dorms at Wells. While the rooms were usually stuffy and hot, and the beds and pillows not always comfortable, the students took valuable lessons back home.
Sean’s greatest takeaway: “In some circumstances you are nothing without a team.”
And Arizmendi: Do “not listen to the voices in your head” and comments from others who might not have your best interests at heart. “Do what you have to do,” she said.