This past August, six youth were selected from Boys & Girls Clubs of Chicago’s (BGCC) Great Opportunities (GO) Program, a program that works to connect Club members to college/university scholarships, tours and career pathways, to participate in a program with Abercrombie & Kent Philanthropy to explore the tourism industry and the American West. Joined by BGCC staff and mentors, participants engaged in a 13-day trip to Utah, Wyoming and Idaho which allowed them to meet and engage with people who work in different industries, inspiring them to consider a career path that they might not have considered before.
They had the opportunity to interact with a variety of professionals ranging from farmers and innkeepers to US park rangers and rafting guides. In addition to learning about the variety of professions in the travel and tourism industry, participants also experienced a personal transformational journey, with the trip incorporating elements of mindfulness and internal exploration such as journaling and yoga.
Abercrombie & Kent Philanthropy was seeking ways to become more involved in helping local communities in the U.S. and BGCC was an excellent fit because of its variety of support services and career development opportunities for inner city youth. The purpose of this powerful partnership was to introduce inner-city youth to careers in tourism and they accomplished their goal. I had the privilege of finding out more about the program in an engaging conversation with Dr. Vicki Lee, BGCC Chief Program Officer and Keith Sproule, A&K Philanthropy Executive Director. Take a look below.
Chicago Defender: How were youth selected to participate in the program?
Dr. Vicki Lee: The six youth that were chosen are participants in our Great Opportunities Program. The program services participants from ages 16-24 and it works to connect youth club members with a variety of college/university, scholarships, tours and career pathways. We put the word out about this opportunity, had them apply and participate in interviews. From there the committee selected the group for the trip.
Chicago Defender: Why was it important to incorporate mindfulness and internal exploration on this trip?
Dr. Vicki Lee: With this experience, youth participated in a personal transformational journey which incorporated elements of mindfulness. Youth participated in facilitated, guided exploration with activities such as journaling and yoga. This component was important because it showed our youth participants new ways to focus their energy in positive ways. It gave them an opportunity to take a moment to truly discover their own skills, passions and dreams for the future.
Keith Sproule: I think as we were crafting the itinerary we structured activities like hiking, horseback riding, jumping into rivers, visiting the national park and river rafting. However, those activities can remain at the surface level if you don’t figure out how to bridge that raw experience with lives lived in a more urban environment. Ensuring mindfulness became an integral part of how we conceived this trip. We had to ensure that the mindfulness part of this trip would be something they could draw upon in addition to having memories of the other experiences.
Chicago Defender: What were some of the focal points for the mindfulness activities?
Keith Sproule: There were some mindfulness practitioners that were there with us throughout the trip. One topic was to bring your best self forth and to identify those qualities that you would attribute to being your best self. For example, on the eight day of the trip there was some conflict. One of the mindfulness practitioners understood that this would be the case. While everyone else wondered how we would manage this, the mindfulness trainer saw this as a perfect opportunity to teach an element of mindfulness. So, she got up early the next morning and facilitated a dialogue and asked two fundamental questions: Is that how you wanted to be? Did you really bring your best self forward? At the end of the session we did a vespers service where we asked students to take ownership of the experience and highlight the things they learned and what were the best parts of it. Both people involved in the conflict stated that they learned from it and were going to take a moment to pause and remember to be their best selves whenever they found themselves in those types of situations. The goal of the activity was to break the learned patterns we have that we’re not so proud of.
Chicago Defender: What sparked Abercrombie & Kent Philanthropy to become more involved in local communities in the U.S.?
Keith Sproule: We don’t have a big domestic product. We don’t sell a lot in the United States. Most of our trips are international, and as a result our community development support is in Africa, Asia and Latin America. In the context of 2020, it was genuinely our company leadership and staff who looked at issues of social justice and racial equity. We began having internal conversations about ways we can do something about these issues domestically and we gladly took the call and found the Boys & Girls Clubs of Chicago to partner with.
Chicago Defender: Why is it important for this generation to learn about careers in tourism?
Keith: Sproule: It’s important for this generation and this demographic to know about tourism. Travel and tourism is the largest industry in the world when we include all the backward linkages. There are so many different components to the industry and there are so many opportunities for those who are entering the career field. We want to be sure people are aware of this. Secondly, we don’t have sufficient diversity within the industry. So we were very intentional about exposing opportunities in this industry, specifically within our company, to the members of the Boys & Girls Clubs.
Chicago Defender: Will the program extend this opportunity to youth throughout the year or will it remain for summer months only?
Dr. Vicki Lee: Right now we’re having open dialogue about how to create truly meaningful, life changing experiences for other youth. We’re definitely discussing how we can continue this relationship. We know that it was meaningful to our youth and it gave them something to do during the summer months that they had never engaged in before. So based on their feedback we are definitely looking into offering this experience to more youth during the summer months.
Chicago Defender: How can inner city youth become more exposed to careers in tourism?
Dr. Vicki Lee: The key is having those conversations with the people who are at the table to say that we have a lack of something in our organization; something is missing in our organization and then ask ourselves where can we go and find it. What is it that we’re missing, who has what we’re missing and how can we engage with them?
Chicago Defender: What was one thing you wanted participants to walk away with from this experience?
Dr. Vicki Lee: We hope that this experience positively impacted their personal and professional development. By exposing them to alternative lives and livelihoods we hope it allowed them to think about this as a potential path for themselves that they may not have thought would be possible. We also wanted them to experience what it would be like outside of the inner city and unplug to just be with themselves.
Keith Sproule: We really wanted everyone on the trip to feel proud that they went for it, and they all did. They all got on a mountain bike, they got into rafts and went through white water, they all got on a horse. Everything we threw at them in the course of these two weeks, they went for it. We wanted them to turn this experience into a metaphor for life and learn how to be their best selves and go for it.
Experience is the best teacher for life and this past summer six very fortunate youth had the opportunity of a lifetime to receive an education that will provide them with a new perspective on the many things life has to offer.
Liz Lampkin is a Lifestyle, Love and Relationships writer. Follow her on social media @Liz_Lampkin