Celebrating 10 Years of YELLS: A Look Back
My name is Ana Vianei, and I’m a proud YELLS alumna! My reflection here is one in a series of reflections leading up to YELLS’s October 18 Tenth Anniversary Networking Dinner. Next month’s reflection will offer a different perspective on the path of this amazing organization and the people who make it so incredibly special.
As a sophomore at Marietta High School, I sat in Laura Keefe’s Language Arts class and at some point, between reading comprehension exercises and writing prompts and presentations and projects, I realized that what I was learning was something much more profound than the ways of the English language.
At that point, YELLS was still Laura’s brain baby, in its infancy and not yet fully developed into the youth force that it is today. But in her daily actions and in her lesson plans, she was already being a steward of servant leadership and instilling in students the values that YELLS espouses.
I didn’t know it then, but I was lucky enough to be a part of the last generation of students to sit in Laura’s classroom and one of the first generations of “Bigs” in the YELLS Mentoring Program. That year I learned how to use the English language to communicate my vision for a better world and inspire others to join. Also that year, with the support of Laura and a nascent YELLS, I participated in Global Youth Service Day and started my own philanthropic project that I continued throughout my high school career. Unlike most years in high school, that year was immensely consequential for me—my interactions with Laura and my involvement in YELLS set the tone for the rest of my time at Marietta and even helped shape my higher education and career years later.
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- Big and Little fun!
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- Ana’s group won the Service Challenge & were awarded $150 toward their community initiative.
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- Ana could always be counted on to lead workshops & activities with Littles
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- Ana motivates Littles to perform the positivity chant they created.
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- A sweet potato harvest!
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- Our YELLS Family – the garden group!
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- Ana honoring her shy Little at the end of her first year in YELLS
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- Honoring a humble, but accomplished Ana as she gets ready to graduate
Ana building relationships at our YELLS Networking Dinner.
From that moment on, nearly every Tuesday of my time in high school was spent meaningfully – having meaningful conversations with the Marietta Police Department officers who drove volunteers to the YELLS site; having meaningful interactions with the “Littles” we mentored and tutored in a small townhouse in a Franklin Road apartment complex; thinking meaningfully about the challenges our community faced and how we could address them; and reflecting meaningfully on what it meant to be a leader. Among those meaningful conversations and introspections were also plenty of meaningful actions! We created a community garden, we held a hunger banquet to raise money for food security, we hosted networking events, we participated in city forums, and organized intercultural fairs. And through these meaningful reflections and meaningful actions, we transformed bits of our community and ourselves!
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- Ana plants one of the first crops in our Community Garden. Ana would spend hot summer days watering and nurturing this garden that she and her fellow Bigs dreamed, designed, created, and cared for.
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- Bigs & Littles ready for a garden work day! Every time we watered, planted, or harvested the garden, neighborhood kids would join us, and Ana always used this as an opportunity to build community.
YELLS was for me, as I’m sure it was for many others, a key and transformational aspect of my high school years. It guided my character building and taught me how to think critically, act meaningfully, and lead with integrity.
Ana and her team wrote proposal letters, engaged experts, secured donations, designed their garden, and mobilized their neighborhood to create their very own Community Garden!
