KV REMC Youth Tour participants were Michael DeHaven, Hannah Leffew and Matthew Sears.

Hannah Leffew certainly knew she experienced something to write home about on the June Electric Cooperative Youth Tour to Washington, D.C.

“For many people on this exciting trip, it was a trip of a lifetime,” she wrote for a local newspaper. That included memories to “last forever” and new friendships with people she “ordinarily would have never met.”

Hannah was one of three area youth Kankakee Valley REMC sponsored on the annual trip East for a select group of incoming high school seniors from around Indiana.

“This is a great trip and a wonderful chance for students to see the sights, make new friends and learn how everyone, even young people, can make a difference in the political process,” said Darrell Marks, KV REMC energy advisor and a past chaperone on the trip.

Providing memorable opportunities for our youth is just one way the REMC helps prepare youth for leadership roles they might fill now and in the future. Two of these opportunities include the Youth Tour and Touchstone Energy Camp for incoming seventh graders. 

Kankakee Valley REMC Touchstone Energy Camp participants, from left, were Courtni Meyers, chaperone; Raegan O’Halek; Georgia Wright; Tatum Wade; Brenden Perry; Vanessa DeWitt; Caleb Calkin; and Darrell Marks, chaperone.

KV REMC sponsored six students at Touchstone Energy Camp, held at YMCA Camp Tecumseh near Brookston.

During this four-day camp, students participated in traditional camp activities along with environmental education, electrical safety practices and learned about the cooperative business model.

Campers selected to represent the cooperative included: Raegan O’Halek from Ben Franklin Middle School and Vanessa DeWitt, Georgia Wright, Brenden Perry, Caleb Calkin and Tatum Wade from South Central Elementary. In addition, cooperative employees Courtni Meyers, accounts payable, and Darrell Marks served as camp counselors.

“It was really neat to see kids come into the cabin as strangers and leave as friends. For many, camp was the highlight of their summer. I have no doubt the memories these kids made in just four short days will last a lifetime,” Meyers recalled of her first time as a camp counselor. 

Joining Hannah, a student at LaCrosse High School, on the Youth Tour to Washington were Michael DeHaven and Matthew Sears, both Washington Township High School students. The three joined more than 1,800 students from 46 states on this weeklong experience.

Youth Tour provides Hoosiers the opportunity to visit the nation’s capital, learn about government, experience American history and gain a better understanding about their electric cooperative and government. 

Students visited the Flight 93 Memorial, the Gettysburg Battlefield, Arlington National Cemetery, Capitol Hill, the Smithsonian museums, the National Mall memorials, and the National Museum of the Marine Corps; took a night cruise on the Potomac River, and much more.

Stay tuned to Electric Consumer for information about next year’s trips around the first of 2019.