TEENS FOLLOW THEIR PASSIONS TO EFFECT CHANGE

• What do you do when you’re a kid in the grocery store and your mother, who has multiple sclerosis, crumples to the floor? You might feel embarrassed or scared. You might not know what to do.
  
• What if your parent is too sick to pick you up from your tutor?


• Or, how do you handle feeling sad because you’re trapped at home all alone?

South Hadley, Mass.—Around the country, tens of thousands of children are living with a parent who is chronically ill or disabled. Sarah Geisler, 16, of Nanuet, New York, is one of these kids. Her mom has multiple sclerosis and has been in a nursing home for four years.

Having lived with a mother who is so sick, Geisler decided to turn her experience into a self-help book that she hopes to publish for middle school students ages 11-14. Her research indicates that no other book addresses the issue for kids, and she hopes her book, Invisible Crutches: Help for Kids with Disabled or Chronically Ill Parents, will help others like her.

Geisler’s project is one example of what teens have done since last October when they attended the Mount Holyoke College Take the Lead program, an intensive leadership training session for outstanding teenage girls. Others include:

• In Wisconsin, Heidi Roop and her high school team raised $15,000 in school supplies for a small town in Mexico that is one of the last breeding grounds for the monarch butterfly.

• In Queens, New York, Shanté Bassett founded a youth organization to help teens get involved in their communities. Her Youth Get Involved fair was featured in Newsday.

• In South Carolina, Anna Boatwright, a trained ballerina, made her dream come true at a local YWCA, where she brought the benefits of ballet to a group of underserved kids each week.

A highly competitive, annual program of Mount Holyoke College, Take the Lead gathers a group of highly spirited high school juniors for a long weekend of workshops and activities focusing on building leadership skills. Last October, Sarah, Heidi, Shanté, and Anna, along with 28 peers, attended the second Take the Lead program held at the women’s college in South Hadley, Massachusetts.

“Their projects reflect what Take the Lead is all about—helping young women develop confidence and the ability to make a difference,” explains Take the Lead program director Patricia VandenBerg.

The Take the Lead Program at Mount Holyoke College
The Take the Lead students were nominated to the program during their sophomore year. More than 600 students like Sarah, Heidi, Shanté, and Anna were nominated but only 40 were selected to participate. (The events of September 11 kept eight students from making the trip to the women’s college last October. Many who did come were accompanied by parents who were too nervous to let their daughters fly alone.)

While on campus, the teens were paired with trained Mount Holyoke students who served as mentors. While together last fall, the college mentors and the high school students developed action project plans to address each teen’s social issue. Sarah, Heidi, Shanté, and Anna had identified their project ideas prior to the campus-based part of the leadership program.

After completing the three days of intense training, the program’s young women then scattered back across the country, returning home to implement their plans. During the past six months, they often kept in touch with their Mount Holyoke mentors via email.

Three Awards Announced
At the end of May, Mount Holyoke College convened a committee to select the most outstanding Take the Lead projects from last October’s program. While all the submitted projects were successful, the committee selected those completed by Shanté Bassett, Anna Boatwright, and Sarah Geisler for three $500 awards. Honorable mentions were also given to Nissa Hiatt, who orchestrated the 5K Race to Erase Racism in Memphis, and Heidi Roop for her environmental/school supply project in Wisconsin.

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