Leadership Camp, STEM, and Mentoring For At Risk Students

Summer Camp Memories

What an incredible 2nd half of the school year we had at SOHY! Growth is key to any organization, team, parenting, etc. We have been blessed with a team of mentors and directors that continue to build upon the culture of our organization. We have 56 young men that are continuing to grow in integrity, honor, and self worth. We are truly blessed!

We are thankful for the administrators at the 3 locations that we hold our after school mentor sessions. They are all very supportive of the work that we do with the boys. When we need a room open or a chord for the projector, they are always quick to help. In turn, we continue to stay consistent and faithful to the mission of their school. 

We ended the school year with our Annual Stone of Hope Youth Leadership Camp! It was our biggest and best yet. There were 42 boys who attended along with the majority our entire SOHY staff. The boys were each assigned to a tribe for the entire 4 day camp. We held many leadership activities such as obstacle course, canoeing, hiking/ orienteering, archery, and many more fun activities. It was great to see the boys come up with their own tribe chants and cheer on their teammates during all of the rotation activities. Our older boys were incredible at leading their tribes and inspiring the younger campers to push past their comfort zone. We finished camp with a full day at Lagoon! The boys were very respectful and had a blast riding rides! Thank you mentors for making the camp a success. 

Our mentor sessions went very well this year! In our elementary sessions, our High School young men have devoted their time to mentor our elementary kids each Monday. Some of the most incredible and beautiful moments happened when we noticed our older boys come alive as coaches, teachers, and encouragers. Wonderful things happen when a person decides to give back. We have seen our boys become more grateful and purposeful. Our elementary kids took time, but are now fully invested in the culture of Stone of Hope Youth! Our most popular session this year with our elementary students has been our 3 on 3 basketball tournament. We lengthened this portion of the program by a few weeks because they were having such a great time working hard, and we were seeing some who needed to learn to put winning and losing into the right perspective. It can feel like the end of the world for these boys to lose, and as a result, they can treat everyone around them very negatively after a loss. We’ve use this as great teaching moments on good sportsmanship. We make sure that we always make each child feel special during every session.

We introduced all of our students to meditation this year. We explained the importance of self-reflection and how we treat others and ourselves. Meditation and getting time alone to be quiet can help manage stress, reduce negative thoughts, increase patience as well as expand our imagination and creativity. It also helps gain new perspectives on difficult situations. It is a lesson we will revisit throughout the years to remind them the benefits of finding inner peace in quieting their minds.

Our high school students learned about love languages such as: how to love our friends and family well, what each of our different love languages are, how to treat women, and the value of proper dating relationships. We’ve discussed how to schedule their time wisely and make homework a priority. Since most of our high school boys are interested in working for money, we began lessons on how to interview and apply for jobs. Our mentors were amazing in giving their past interview experiences, good or bad. Each boy had the opportunity to practice their new interview skills with their mentors. This lesson inspired one of our boys to apply and he got the job! We were all ecstatic for him! He also shared his new experience with the rest of the boys!

​Our middle school kids had a wonderful semester as well. We began our STEM project called “Mission to Mars.” We were in partnership with the STEM Action Center of Utah. It was so cool to see ALL of our middle schoolers excited for each of the rotations. We broke up the boys into teams to be in charge of a specific task of our mission. TEAM 1:Leaving Earth/Getting Home, TEAM 2: Traveling safely to Mars, TEAM 3: Landing on/Exploring Mars, TEAM 4: Surviving on Mars. The boys took pride in their teams and the task given to them. We are praying to have some NASA workers in our future. ​

Yes, we spend every week teaching life skills, leadership, hard work, etc. We also make sure that we make it a priority to do more outside of the Mentor Sessions. FUN is the key so we carved out multiple days for fun Mini Camps and field trips. We spent a Saturday having a  Boondocks Fun Day. They had a blast riding go-karts, laser tag, and playing video games. We all had a new experience at iFLY where they went into a funnel to feel what it was like to skydive. We had our annual Snow Shoe Day and our annual SOHY Community Garden Build Day. Every field trip and mini camp gave us the opportunity, as mentors, to get to know the boys even better as we are out of the school setting. The smiles on their faces is what it is all about! 

Thank you to all of our financial supporters for blessing our youth. Without your gracious gifts, we would not be able to provide our boys with the many experiences throughout the year. We are always seeking new donors as there is a big need to support our ever-growing organization. Thank you also to our mentors who give their time and effort on a weekly basis. The boys stay in our organization because of the mentors that speak into their lives every week. We are always seeking new mentors to grow our amazing team. If you or someone you know is interested in blessing our SOHY boys, please have them fill out our Volunteer Interest form from the QR code below. 

Sincerely,
​
The Stone of Hope Youth Team
www.stoneofhopeyouth.org
info@stoneofhopeyouth.org

Donate to Stone of Hope Youth
https://tinyurl.com/SOHYdonate