L.E.A.D. (Leadership Exploration Academic Development)

Being an program officer for L.E.A.D at my own high school Phillip and Sala Burton High is amazing! I get to experience firsthand how the mentor's and mentee's interact with each other. L.E.A.D is a club developed by students in my school to help the different age groups come together and learned from one another. The juniors and seniors are the mentors helping the sophomores and freshmen to better understand both the high school and college process. To help better the team bond and leadership skills, L.E.A.D fundraises money to help its students go on environmental trips outside San Francisco and have different types of experiences than their peers.   

While in the L.E.A.D meeting last Thursday I was given insight into how much perpetration and participation it takes on both the youth leader’s side and the participants side to make everything happen, both groups of youth where very interactive with each other in planning their upcoming trips such as hiking and camping. Feedback was given to the youth leaders to help better their next trip. It was amazing to see how far L.E.A.D had come since the beginning of the year and knowing that my friends helped it come this far made the joy I felt for them even sweeter.