Our Annual Winter Retreat was full of surprises and lessons this year!
During our Annual Winter Retreats we teach scholars lessons in telling their stories. We also work with our scholars to provide them with the tools they will need to make effective change in our communities.
Ironically, the Women’s March on Denver fell on the same weekend as our intercollegiate retreat and we thought… What better way to teach civic engagement than to jump right into the middle of it! So, we revised our agenda and let the scholars observe and/or participate in in the march. It was a first march for many and became a great learning tool to show how powerful community organizing can be!
Over the course of the weekend our scholars also went through many workshops to help them grow and build upon their strengths. The workshops included Public Narrative, Identity, Building Your Resume, and Self-Care General/Mindfulness.
The Mindfulness Workshop was led by one of our own Puksta Alumni, Cody Wiggs (DU ’11). Cody is now serving as the Executive Director of Empowering Education. Empowering Education Inc. is a non-profit organization that offers comprehensive Social & Emotional Learning (SEL) programming, professional development, and implementation support in K-8.
We enjoyed a delicious dinner at Maggiano’s and were touched by the words and advice that was given by our graduating Puksta Scholars from each of our 5 partnering universities.
It was a wonderful weekend with many hugs, laughs, tears and sometimes deep introspection. But the most beautiful part of all was to see the family bond that forms between the scholars.
