PARKERSBURG - Youth leadership development was the focus of the S.T.A.R.S. program Thursday at the Boys and Girls Club of Parkersburg.
Stella Moon, coordinator of the adolescent health initiative for RESA V, said the program is designed to promote leadership development in students who have unrecognized leadership potential. S.T.A.R.S. stands for Super Teens Achieving Regional Success.
The students ranged from sixth grade to high school seniors in the RESA V eight-county service area.
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Dan Canada, WesBanco’s corporate training officer, talks with the students about the impact of their actions and how one person can make a difference in another person’s life.
They participated in five seminars covering planning a meaningful service project, team building, how to develop healthy relationships, making positive choices and how to improve the daily physical and academic performances, Moon said.
Dan Canada, of WesBanco, spoke to the students about how they can impact others in their lives.
"It's like the butterfly effect," he said. "A butterfly flutters its wings in May and that flutter could be a hurricane later."
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A program designed to promote leadership development in students who have unrecognized leadership potential took place Thursday at the Boys and Girls Club of Parkersburg.
Students in the program ranged from sixth grade to high school seniors from Calhoun, Pleasants, Ritchie, Roane, Tyler, Wirt and Wood counties.
They will be responsible for setting up community service projects in their communities.
Canada said he used the story of a high school football game on Oct. 3 to speak about how actions can affect others.
"The father of Logan Thompson, a freshman player that was seldom used, passed away and one of the players, Michael Ferns, a junior, said the team needed to do something for him," he said.
With the outcome of the game all but decided a football player ran to the one yard line and stepped out of bounds. Thompson was put in the game to make the one-yard touchdown run.
"The point of the story was what effect will that have on the player and in return what will he do for others because of that," Canada said. "They can find a way to do something in their community service project to impact others and how that project may affect others because of what they did."
In April, the students will set up a community project and return for a rewards luncheon to go over the programs the students planned, Moon said.
"They will decide what they will do; they will go back to their communities and take a look and see what they can do to help," she said. "Westbrook will supply a support base to answer questions and they can also consult the Family Resource Network and the extension service."
The program is sponsored by RESA V and Westbrook Health Services and collaborating partners are the Parkersburg Boys and Girls Club, 4-H, West Virginia University Extension Service and the Family Resource Networks in Calhoun, Pleasants, Ritchie, Roane, Tyler, Wirt and Wood counties.
