Before Camp Wakes

Europe

The card attached to this trackable was created by a military teen during the 2016 Joint Reserve Component (JRC) Teen Leadership Summit.  This week-long summer camping experience unites military-connected teens of Army National Guard, Army Reserve, Marine Corps Reserve, Navy Reserve, Air National Guard, Air Force Reserve and Coast Guard Reserve.  The goal of the JRC Teen Leadership Summit is to bring together youth in a high adventure context to build their leadership, communication, and cooperation skills.  The 2016 JRC Teen Leadership Summit was held at Wahsega 4-H Center in Dahlonega, Georgia.  This program is funded through the Extension-Military Partnership, a collaborative project between the United State Department of Agriculture and the Office of Secretary of Defense - Military Community and Family Policy.  During the 2016 JRC Teen Leadership Summit, 112 military-connected teens from as far west as Hawai’i and as far east as the U.S. Virgin Islands participated in the camp.

As a reflective exercise, teen participants were given the blank cards attached the trackable item you found.  Teens were able to express their experiences of the program through a variety of creative means – drawings, quotes, poems, doodles, journal, etc.  Each card was then attached to a trackable and the teens set a goal for their trackable.  Trackables were placed in caches near the 4-H Center and teens are able to watch their trackables move through the geocaching community, hoping to ultimately reach their goal.  As part of the reflective process, the teen that created the card for this trackable wrote “This scene is reflective of the place where I would meet my friend in the morning. We would go to meals together, do activities together, we would even meet at 6:30 in the morning just to get together. We have spent virtually our whole camp experience together. I hope we will meet again someday.”

We hope you enjoyed learning more about the 2016 Joint Reserve Component (JRC) Teen Leadership Summit.  For more information, please visit http://www.georgia4h.org/jointreservesummit/ or contact us at milcamps@uga.edu.