The Allen Lima Youth Leadership program provides area students with the kind of training that they can use to become better leaders. Â The program runs year-round and 29 students from area schools participated in a special team-building event, where the activities were fun and informative.
"They're actually doing leadership development, and that encompasses a lot of different things: communication skills, team building, conflict resolution, organizational management, those sorts of things," said Heather Rutz, Executive Director of Allen Lima Leadership.
This is the first year that the youth program is being held at Fasset Farm, home of the Equestrian Therapy Program, where the students had opportunities to work with the horses there in different activities, which added a new level of team building.
"Working with horses is a special experience - for some kids, it's something that they've never experienced before, and for other kids, in certain school districts they have experience through a family farm or a 4H program," Rutz said. Â "There are kids who have horse experience who were stepping up as leaders, who I didn't see as leaders earlier in different activities."
The students that are participating in this program say that the activities are really preparing them for their futures.
"I just think it's a good thing to do before starting to look at colleges and applying to them," said Adam Schneer, who is a junior at Delphos St. John's High School.
"I definitely liked working with people with different personalities and different leadership skills," Allison Bowsher, a junior at Spencerville High School. "We all have strengths and weaknesses - today, already I've learned that my weakness is that I like to talk, so I definitely need to listen to others and take other people's ideas into consideration."
Fasset Farm is available for other corporate events that may want to take advantage of the team-building activities with the horses.
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