Leadership summit reaches out to USAFE teens

  • Published
  • By Master Sgt. Scott Wagers
  • Air Force News Agency
RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany (AFPN) --  More than 100 teens from 11 U.S. Air Forces in Europe bases traveled here to take part in the first Air Force-hosted European Keystone Club Leadership Summit.

The Keystone program, aimed at developing leadership skills and encouraging civic responsibility in youths aged 14 to 18 years old, has been part of the Girls and Boys Club movement since 1960. In 1995, it began partnering with military-based youth centers worldwide.

The week-long summit was organized by Chett Kline, youth program director in the nearby Vogelweh Military Complex, who said garnering the attention and involvement of teens in the new millennium requires a different strategy than ones used in the past.
"Kids today can sit in their rooms for 10 hours and travel the world (via the Internet) and play video games that will blow you away. Because of that, (youth centers) have to aggressively recruit teens by coming up with new and exciting things to engage them."

For 14-year-old Karria Willoughby, a Keystone Club member for the last year, it has been the community outreach projects that appeal to her the most.

Sitting down to rest after a humanitarian project collecting toys and furniture for a Romanian orphanage, she reflected on a before-and-after-school mentoring project she did here earlier in the year.

"I met a little girl who reminded me of myself when I was five: very shy," she said.  "We played tag and drew with chalk.  I was sad to go at the end but it was fun to meet her.

"I used to get nervous and my palms would sweat because I didn't know anybody. Now because I meet new kids all the time, it's like no big deal. It's changed my self confidence."

Mr. Kline said only one third of the 105 Keystone leadership summit attendees are prior Keystone Club members. The other seventy percent are the result of a new recruiting initiative.

Ken Schath, the training and curriculum specialist for Ramstein's youth center, and one of ten adult advisors at the Keystone summit, said there are two kinds of kids who patronize most youth centers.

"There are those kids who just want to hang out in a place that's fun and safe, and those kids are not going to be interested in doing fundraisers for malaria. But kids that discover Keystone Club find that their grades will be up, they'll be in the Honor Society, they play sports, music, they're civic-minded and they're preparing for college," he said.
Teens attending the week-long Keystone summit found themselves up at 6:30 a.m. each day preparing for community service projects, professional job shadowing, team-building exercises and fund raising initiatives that were budgeted and allocated to various charities.

The youths also were joined and mentored the entire week by the current and former-Boys and Girls Club of America national and regional Youths of the Year.  This was the result of a separate initiative facilitated by USAFE officials.

"We're all here this week for one main reason," said 19-year-old Demetrice Tuttle, Keystone Summit mentor and the 2007-08 Boys and Girls Club of America's national Youth of the Year, "to make a positive impact on the world." 

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