Windsor Teens Excel in Summer Nexus Leadership Program

From Leadership Greater Hartford: Have your teenagers made summer plans yet? Plans that will help them grow in confidence, independence, and a willingness to give back to their community? A summer experience that will serve them well in college and beyond?

Four teens became leaders over the course of one summer. Olivia McAdams, junior, Watkinson School; Cameryn Quinitchett, sophomore, Windsor High School; Parker Reeves, sophomore, Greater Hartford Classical Magnet School; and Andrew Strudwick, junior, Metropolitan Learning Center, all participated in Leadership Greater Hartford's Summer Nexus program.

"Summer Nexus was a great experience. My dad told me to go and I begged him not to, but now I am thankful because each day we learned something new. Now I get to apply these skills in the work force, college and in life; now I will be able to go above and beyond,” claims Quinitchett. And McAdams adds that the program “helps hone skills to grow to your full potential. With creative learning strategies and collaborative work, Summer Nexus teaches teens to be strong, caring leaders."

Summer Nexus is a week-long youth leadership program that gives high schoolers a chance to broaden their horizons, build relationships with students from different communities, appreciate different points of view, and still be part of something uniquely their own.

Offered in two different sessions each summer, the experience helps young women and men develop leadership skills that will help them make an impact in their schools and communities. Coming from both urban and suburban schools, Summer Nexus participants build new bonds of trust and friendship through an interactive curriculum and by planning and implementing a community-focused service project.

All four Windsor teens attended Session II. Their group partnered with Hartford Decide$, the state’s first participatory budgeting initiative. They planned and implemented a car wash; the proceeds were donated to Hartford Decide$ to help them launch their second initiative. In addition to raising $1500 in donations, the students created marketing materials and secured donations of food and decorations for a Hartford Decide$ donor cultivation event.

In 2016 Summer Nexus brought together 33 students from 16 different towns and 26 different high schools. By using the new leadership skills they learned, the high schoolers discovered the difference they could make by working together. Strudwick shares that the program "expanded my thoughts on diversity,” and Reeves adds that the program helped him to become “an influential and strong leader in my community. Without Summer Nexus I would not have learned about the qualities that make a great leader."

Summer Nexus 2017 is being offered in either July (July 16 to 22) or August (August 6 to 12). Applications
are now being accepted. Visit leadershipgh.org or call 860-951- 6161, x1100.

Photo courtesy of Leadership Greater Hartford