At Anchor House, in addition to meeting the basic needs of the youth and young adults in our programs, we also want to be able to provide experiences and offer extracurricular activities to help them broaden their sense of self and give them opportunities they might not have otherwise.
Thanks to an anonymous funder, this Fall, the residents in our Anchorage Transitional Living Program were able to attend a two-day retreat at the Princeton-Blairstown Center. It is an outdoor education center that helps young people build their social emotional learning skills, including communication, collaboration, creativity and critical thinking. Groups from Anchor House have been going to the Princeton-Blairstown Center for many years and view it as their annual vacation.
Our young people spent two days there outside learning about nature, participating in team-building exercises, and learning the importance of working together. Once the youth arrived and settled in at the Princeton-Blairstown Center, the team building exercises began. This included going on a magic carpet ride, where they all stood on a small square carpet and had to figure out how to turn it over under their feet without stepping off of it. They didn’t believe it could be done, but they prevailed!
Another exercise was maneuvering a giant ski together which taught them the importance of communicating clearly, giving others a chance and being open to trying others’ ideas and suggestions (even if you think they won’t work), following directions, and where working together gets you.
For the last exercise of the day, the residents were partnered and had to run through the swinging jump rope together. If they let go of each other’s hand or were touched by the rope, they had to go back and try again. Once they mastered the task in pairs, they mastered it as a group. This taught them about unity, collaboration, and support and highlighted the importance of not leaving a partner behind, even when that would be of benefit to you. They had so much fun completing these exercises, they didn’t realize they were learning life skills.
After dinner that evening, the youth gathered around the firepit to make smores (a first for some of them) and solve riddles. During a late-night stroll, they commented that they never seen so many stars before.
The next day included the group’s favorite and most impactful team building exercise. a blind maze. The youth were blindfolded and led through the woods to a rope maze. Their task was to “keep one hand on the rope at all times” and follow it to the end where they would find a bell to ring. The residents spent over 30 minutes following the rope in a triangle – guiding each other, talking each other through, wondering if they were passing the same points over and over, and guessing what their progress was. Then, one comment turned into a realization that turned into an epiphany, leading them to the right path – and a bell that they each would ring. After finding their way through the maze, residents were off to try their hand at the much-anticipated rock-climbing wall followed by a lesson on surviving an apocalypse and a scavenger hunt.
The youth had a great time, expressing they would like to return and stay longer than two days. It was a time for self discovery and as one participant summed it up, “I really did learn a lot being here, especially about myself!”
