Wednesday-Friday, Sept. 11-13—KILLINGTON — Nearly 140 students from upstate New York will kick off the 2024-2025 school year by becoming real-life superheroes during a three-day — and phone-free — Youth Leadership Summit in Killington.
Seven schools have registered for the first-of-its-kind summit at Killington Resort from Wednesday, Sept. 11 to Friday, Sept. 13. Sweethearts & Heroes will hold this inaugural event — intended to spark a nationwide initiative — in conjunction with Spartan Race.
Sweethearts & Heroes aims to prevent hopelessness, bullying and suicide by providing dynamic, inspiring content that centers on the human interaction skills necessary for schools and other organizations to change all aspects of their culture — skills such as empathy, compassion and teamwork.
Sweethearts & Heroes designed the upcoming summit, which is also during National Suicide Prevention Month, to unite a select group of youth influencers who represent diverse peer groups from a conglomeration of schools and districts. These influencers will participate in various leadership seminars centered around empathy activation and student empowerment, taking them on a ceremonial initiation into the world of Sweethearts & Heroes, which wants to spread its message across the U.S. by holding similar summits with Spartan.
These summits will be scheduled in conjunction with locally held and nationally attended Spartan races, such as the one from Sept. 14-15 in Killington — the “backyard” of Spartan Founder and CEO Joe De Sena, who established Spartan in Vermont. Sweethearts & Heroes will utilize Spartan’s obstacle course to close out The summit on Sept. 13 with a fun-filled, play-centered, team-building “race” — but that’s just the beginning.
The real work starts when these new youth leaders, who bonded during the conference through various challenges and overcame adversity together during the “race,” then return to their respective schools to spread messages from The Summit throughout the rest of their district — a message of H.O.P.E. (Hold On, Possibilities Exist) for students, by students.
The seven New York school teams lined up for the first summit in Killington are from: the Ticonderoga Central School District, the Crown Point Central School District, AuSable Valley High School, the Peru Central School District, the Oppenheim-Ephratah-St. Johnsville Central School District, Chazy Central Rural School, and the Middleburgh Central School District.
“Our K-12 school is in a significant transition; transitions can be hard,” said Kathryn Brown, an English teacher at Chazy Central Rural School. Fourteen Chazy students quickly signed on to the Killington Summit after watching a 3-minute promo video and attending a 15-minute meeting. “When a grant opportunity presented itself (to attend the summit), it was the universe giving a few of us the gentle nudge to take action. We want to create and maintain a culture of empathy, listening, and hope, with the help of Sweethearts and Heroes,” Brown said.
The summits will also be phone-free environments. Tom Murphy, Sweethearts & Heroes director/founder, said, “Young people have gotten away from the important, healthy, interpersonal communication they need on a daily basis, and by keeping our summits phone-free, we’re helping them return. By the end of these three days, they’ll see that they can work together, without their phones or social media, to accomplish their goals through teamwork, listening and much, much more. We’re going to blow their minds in Killington. We can’t wait.”
The Summit marks a massive shift in focus for Sweethearts & Heroes, which has brought the messages of H.O.P.E., Action, Empathy, and what they call “the ‘stop, drop and roll’ of bullying” directly to the schools of nearly 2 million students, from New England to Hawaii, and from Canada to California, for 16 years.
The Summit turns things around, bringing students to Sweethearts & Heroes. “We’ll train these young leaders to bring our ‘Stop, Drop, and Roll’ of bullying back to their local schools and to deliver our messages of H.O.P.E., Action, and Empathy to their local communities,” Murphy said. “Our young people are on the frontlines in this war against hopelessness, and we must shepherd and empower them to be the change we need.”
The programs and initiatives brought back to schools include Sweethearts & Heroes’ signature Circle work, built on the ancient ritual of sharing, listening and creating a community of belonging. Schools will also access Sweethearts & Heroes’ new online learning platform, The H.O.P.E. Classroom, and the crown jewel of their curriculum: the B.R.A.V.E. Youth Leadership Program.
In addition to Murphy, Sweethearts & Heroes’ central team of traveling presenters includes Ret. U.S. Army Sgt. Rick Yarosh, a HOPE expert, Purple Heart recipient and motivational speaker from New York who was burned severely while serving in Iraq; and Pat Fish, B.R.A.V.E. Program Director & Circle Specialist, also of New York.
For more information, visit Sweethearts & Heroes on social media.
