About 200 children and teens watched David Wilson, the Weber State University Student Association’s student body president, as he spoke to the Boys and Girls Club of Weber-Davis in Roy. Wilson gave the talk Monday morning, highlighting leadership, its importance to communities and the impact it can have on individual lives.
The Boys and Girls Club of America is a national organization aimed at promoting and assisting the development of youth by helping create values and providing recreation, care and supervision.
Chelsea Wessman, the site director for the Boys and Girls Club of Weber-Davis and a WSU student, said the Boys and Girls Club has summer clubs such as a running club, art club and guitar club. She said the Boys and Girls Club is also dedicated to leadership training and tries to teach the youth more about leadership.
“That was something that, when I came on, I really thought was important to give to the kids,” Wessman said. “We decided we were going to focus a lot on values and leadership this summer.”
Wessman said the leadership program is still in the works, and Wilson was the first person she thought of to speak for the program because of his role as the student body president at WSU and past responsibilities with the WSU Student Association. Wessman said she wants to keep teaching the youth about leadership.
“Our goal is to just get members from the community or influential people in here to talk to the kids,” she said. “The kids not only benefit from their experience, but bringing people in really excites the kids in general. It gives them the opportunity to not only have a change in their day, but to get to meet some of these really cool people that they don’t even know exist.”
Wilson did a leadership exercise with the kids, having them guide each other through an obstacle course. Wilson said the whole experience was a lot of fun.
“The kids were great and had a ton of energy,” he said. “It was good to be able to come to speak to them a little bit.”