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blog
Self-Care and Community: An Insider Scoop on the 2024 Riley’s Way Youth Leadership Retreat
By Ariana Harper, Riley’s Way Youth Leadership Retreat Intern
After months of organizing, emailing, and seeing a hundred names on numerous spreadsheets, I was so excited to finally put faces to the names. As the Riley’s Way Youth Leadership Retreat Intern, I spent months planning for the Retreat, but nothing could have prepared me for the new community I found as we all gathered at Timber Lake West Camp in Roscoe, NY this past September.
As a relatively new member of the Riley’s Way community, I was both excited and a bit nervous. However, all my nerves melted away as soon as I arrived at Timber Lake West. The crisp air and the vibrant fall foliage were the perfect setting for the weekend. As buses rolled in, familiar faces from Zoom transformed into real hugs and lively conversations as we updated each other on our lives.
The Retreat officially kicked off after Riley’s Way Executive Director, Dr. Christine O’Connell , gave her welcome address. My first task? Leading a high-energy BINGO icebreaker. I had the idea for this icebreaker after doing it at school, but watching over a hundred teenagers excitedly run around the room to ask each other questions was so much more of a rewarding experience than I thought it would be. Voices echoed around the room as people discovered shared interests and learned something new about one another.
After a lively dinner filled with chatter, laughter, and delicious barbeque, I got to lead a workshop called “Finding Your Own Personal Leadership Style.” In this workshop, I spoke on the qualities of a good leader and asked participants to reflect on their leadership experiences. Then, participants took a short quiz to identify their dominant leadership style and used the results to create a leadership action plan. As I walked around the room, I heard some really engaging conversations on leadership, growth, and vulnerability as well as a handful of light-hearted jokes. After my workshop, we had free time and I went to the game room. I bonded with other people by losing terribly at pool and dominating in foosball. I went to bed that night feeling like I connected so deeply with these people that I had met only a few hours previously. 
I woke up early the next morning and walked down to the lake to take in the serenity and beauty of Timber Lake West. Along with the amazing company, the Retreat couldn’t have been in a better location. There’s something about being in nature that invites reflection, and Timber Lake West was the perfect backdrop for our self-discovery and community building. After breakfast, participants attended an interactive panel with Riley’s Way Call For Kindness Fellows, Manavi Bajpai, Jay’Shun Mathews, and Chase Hartman, along with Mariah Karis of Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Foundation . After working on this panel alongside Chelsea Osei, the moderator, I was so excited to see it come to life. We chose each of these panelists because of their success in their projects. However, a big focus of the panel was on obstacles and moments of self doubt. Our intentions for this panel were to show participants the behind-the-scenes of having your own initiative and for participants to learn how to take care of themselves. This kept in line with our Retreat theme: Creating Space for Yourself + Your Community. The panel went even better than I’d hoped! Although it’s important to feel inspired and hear about the success of other initiatives, the panelists’ vulnerable answers to questions like “How do you realize now is the time to step back? How do you step back?” were especially impactful and left a lasting impression.
After the panel I attended the “Communications/Marketing” workshop led by Ava Mateo , Riley’s Way’s Communications Manager. As someone new to the business and nonprofit world, I learned a lot about how to market yourself through social media and platforms like LinkedIn. We also collaborated to help Ava come up with a new tagline for Riley’s Way! After leading my workshop again, I did the Ropes Course and GoKarts, both of which were exhilarating experiences that really made me feel like I was back in summer camp again!
Over the course of the weekend, I met so many amazing and inspiring people from all over the country. They were all leaders in their own ways and in their own communities. Seeing all of us come together made me so excited for the future. This group of young people strengthened my hope that the next generation of leaders around me will create impactful change. It’s weekends like this that remind me how lucky I am to be a part of Riley’s Way, a community where everyone is encouraged to lead with kindness, empathy, and purpose.