This month, the Red Pandas Keystone Club in Santa Maria had the opportunity to partake in the 57th Annual Keystone Conference, held in Atlanta, Georgia. Keystone is Boys & Girls Club of America’s premiere teen character and leadership program to help develop good character and positive leadership for teens with a purpose to create and maintain high standards of character, citizenship, health and education for teens to grow into responsible, productive adults.
We had the pleasure of taking 10 of our Keystone members to experience what the conference had to offer and the feedback we received from each of them was very positive and impactful. One of the biggest takeaways most of the members had was getting a chance to travel to a different part of the United States and meeting so many people of diverse backgrounds. Although it might have felt uncomfortable for some at first, time spent in the general sessions and classes enabled them to meet other teens from backgrounds different from their own. Another sentiment was how united their generation was on various topics and community needs.
The theme this year was on being united, brave, and loud. These themes were reinforced with testimony and speeches by the Keynote speaker, actor and singer, Corbin Blue, as well as Dr. Bernice King, daughter or the late Dr. Martin Luther King. The members also had an opportunity to attend different classes on topics of their choosing and culminated in a community service project. For the community service project, most of the members built skateboards for young children in foster care. The advisors also had an opportunity to attend some classes of our own to enhance our knowledge of teen programming and an opportunity to ask questions and network.
The conference ended with a bang as we spent our final evening at Six Flags. Members were able to relax and have some fun by going on all the different rides and spending a few more hours with their newly made friends. After the park was closed to the general public, all Keystone attendees had the opportunity to enjoy the park to themselves for an extended hour. Overall, it was a fun, impactful, and great learning experience that our Keystoner’s would love to experience again in the future.
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