LAKE COUNTY — Challenge Day presenters hosted a series of presentations this week at Clear Lake and Lower Lake high schools.
“Challenge Day was so amazing,” June Wilson, who organized Challenge Day at Clear Lake High School, said.
The presenters, Jyoti Subramanian and Jake Cahill, spent Monday and Tuesday at Clear Lake High School. According to Wilson, more than 210 students took the challenge and more than 100 want to be in the school”s “Be the Change” club.
On Wednesday and Thursday, Subramanian and Cahill presented Challenge Day at Lower Lake High School. Amy Osborn, the school”s Challenge Day coordinator, said that this is the school”s fourth year of working with Challenge Day.
Participants were led through a series of exercises that included sharing answers to questions posed to them and an exercise called “crossing the line,” in which participants crossed over lines that had been taped on the floor if certain characteristics applied to them. The point was to illustrate similarities that lie beneath what a person looks like or appears to be.
Adult volunteers played a vital role during presentations at both schools, with one adult needed to facilitate each “family group” of four to five students.
The volunteers” first instructions on Wednesday were to forget what they knew about Challenge Day. Cahill told them that every Challenge Day is organic; that what the students want to talk about will shape each Challenge Day.
“The success and continuation of the program depends on the adults like you who volunteer their time, laugh, cry, play and get real with our students,” Osborn told volunteers afterward. “Students and staff have seen changes in the culture here, with significantly fewer fights and a campus that is more emotionally safe as well.”
Wilson said her next goal is to have Challenge Day every year, not only at Clear Lake High School but at all Lake County schools. “Be the Change” meetings take place at 6 p.m. on the first Tuesday of each month at Round Table Pizza in Lakeport.
Osborn invites parents and community members to be involved in Lower Lake High School”s “Be the Change” team, which meets regularly during the day. For more information, call 994-6471, ext. 2707. For more information about Challenge Day, visit www.challengeday.org.
Editor”s Note: Cynthia Parkhill writes further about Challenge Day in her column that will appear Tuesday in the Lake County Record-Bee.
