The Benton County 4-H Ambassadors had their Winter Retreat on Saturday, Jan. 19 in Becker. It was an exciting time as 30 of Benton County’s 4-H Ambassador’s along with their advisors, Joyce Belanger, Jacki Janski and volunteer Vicky Molitor, enjoyed this special event.
“I love going to the ambassador retreats”, said Sophia Janorschke, 11th grader from Foley, “They help us better understand one another and I feel that we all left knowing each other even better. Not just as people but as friends and fellow 4-H’ers.”
The day was packed with numerous leadership, team-building, and communication activities plus a time to plan for the upcoming summer.
The youth also had to solve a BREAKOUT BOX challenge that they plan to implement this summer at 4-H day camps. The Breakout EDU is the immersive learning game platform that allows for the facilitation of a game where players use teamwork and critical thinking to solve a series of challenging puzzles in order to open a locked box.
Four different teams of ambassadors worked at opening their locked boxes. It was a great opportunity for them to work together, solve and investigate clues, and learn about one another. It will be interesting to see how younger camp kids do with challenge.
“I thought the retreat was a great way to get to know our strengths and how everyone interacts with each other.” said Kaylee Jurek, 10 grader from Foley. “I really like how the breakout box allowed us to work together as a team and come up with ideas to break out together. The fact that is wasn’t just one person against another, rather a team, really helped everyone learn from each other .”
The highpoint of the day was that Benton County 4-H Ambassadors had an opportunity at the retreat to find out what each of their strengths are and how they can thrive. They learned about their strengths through an assessment that each took online at CliftonStrengths finder prior to the retreat.
Youth need to use their strengths to truly succeed. Learning each others strengths makes us a better team whether at work, school or in 4-H. We spent time doing activities and talking with one another to learn how to use these strengths to build each other up and make us extremely successful.
“The retreat was a great opportunity to bring the kids together to learn about their strengths and how we all need those strengths to work together for the common good,” said Joyce Belanger Ambassador Advisor.
