Posted by Reggie Brewington Jr.
Do you ever wonder how cool it must be to compete in the Olympics? To be considered the best to represent your country…to be able to travel somewhere you may not have been before…to see how you measure up against the rest in the world and ultimately be named the best of the best? That has to be such an honor.
The opportunity to compete on a higher level does not come along often, but when it does you have to seize it. I did just that when I participated in the Youth Opportunities Unlimited Youth Career Olympics. Now I wasn’t running the 100 meter dash or playing for the Dream Team, but I had a great time nonetheless and walked away with something that I won’t forget.
The Youth Career Olympics is an annual event held by Youth Opportunities Unlimited (Y.O.U.). Y.O.U is a Not-For-Profit organization located in Cleveland whose mission is to empower youth – disadvantaged youth born into poverty – to succeed in school, in the workplace, and in life. If this is your first time hearing about them, take a few minutes and check them out here. Y.O.U. is a great organization led by Carol Rivchun and full of passionate people that really have a desire to see our youth develop into all of the things we dream for them. They have many programs in the Cleveland schools, libraries and other locations that focus on preparing youth for their future.
This is my fourth year participating in the Youth Career Olympics. The Corporate Challenge is an event that is somewhat similar to Jeopardy. The purpose is to motivate students to participate on teams, and test their knowledge of situations related to the world of work and post-secondary education, and to give students the opportunity to work closely with people from the corporate community.
As much as I would love to be the one competing, I’m actually volunteering to assist the Career Coach at the Martin Luther King Library – Prime Time location. The Career Coach there is Brenda Stark. My co-worker, Chris Valponi, and I met with Ms. Stark and our Corporate Challenge athletes Jacqueline Sutton-Nicholson, Brianna Lewis, Savannah Horton, and Sunnie Aaron two weeks prior to the Olympics to help out where we can. I worked with Jacqueline and Brianna. They had a lot of energy and were fun to work with. Their team name was Kindergarten Love, K-Love for short.
Chris and I had little to do with how prepared our teams were and full credit goes to Ms. Stark. She’s a great coach and her students seem to really appreciate how much she supports them. She had her team primed and ready to go. I guess you could say we were there to help them scrimmage. We gave a few pointers and talked a little about what they could expect, walked through the questions, and gave a few tips about proper buzzing technique. You have to be fast to the buzzer in this game.
The event was held on April 28th, 2011 at The Cleveland Clinic’s campus in Lyndhurst. If you’ve never been there, you’re missing out. It’s a beautiful campus and an excellent venue for the Olympic festivities. The Youth Career Olympics is comprised of events related to decision making, public speaking, employment interview, employment test, telephone technique, corporate challenge, program cover design, visual display, community service, application review and budgeting for life.
Our teams were competing against other sites within the city. There were about 15 teams total. Both teams got off to a great start and won their first match. Unfortunately my team, K-Love, didn’t advance because we didn’t score enough points overall. Chris’ team made it to the quarterfinals but lost there. While our events ended early, all was not lost. Y.O.U. also had a job fair set up for the students to find out about some of the local companies with openings. One of the young ladies on our team walked away with a job interview for the following week.
The festivities ended with an awards ceremony where trophies and prizes were awarded. Gary Waters, the Head Coach of the Cleveland State University men’s basketball team, gave the commencement speech about the tools needed for success and how the youth could obtain the things they dream of.
All in all it was a great event. I may not have won a gold medal but I definitely walked excited for the future of today’s youth and that’s about as good as gold.
