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Erica Techo
Project group leader David Higgins speaks at the Leadership Shelby County Class of 2016 graduation luncheon.
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Project group leader Michael Cain speaks at the Leadership Shelby County Class of 2016 graduation luncheon.
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Michael Cain, Monique Shorts and Mark Beddingfield at the Leadership Shelby County Class of 2016 graduation luncheon.
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Craft Maier and Casey Bentley at the Leadership Shelby County Class of 2016 graduation luncheon.
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Kendall Williams and Casey Morris at the Leadership Shelby County Class of 2016 graduation luncheon.
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Jim Sumpter, president of the Leadership Shelby County Alumni Association, speaks at the Leadership Shelby County Class of 2016 graduation.
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Leadership Shelby County President Bridgette Jordan Smith speaks at the Leadership Shelby County Class of 2016 graduation.
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Susan Johnston, Calvin Gunn and Wallace Williams at the Leadership Shelby County Class of 2016 graduation.
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Emmanuel Scozzaro and Kristi Scozzaro at the Leadership Shelby County Class of 2016 graduation
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Pelham High School student Luke Walker receives one of the 2016 Youth Leadership Scholarship Awards at the Leadership Shelby County Class of 2016 graduation luncheon.
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Allison Pittman (left) receives one of the 2016 Youth Leadership Scholarship Awards at the Leadership Shelby County Class of 2016 graduation luncheon.
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Chelsea High School student Luke Walker receives one of the 2016 Youth Leadership Scholarship Awards at the Leadership Shelby County Class of 2016 graduation luncheon.
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Alicia Anger, Bridgette Smith and Barbara Forrest at the Leadership Shelby County Class of 2016 graduation luncheon.
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Wings of Hope Pediatric Foundation co-founder Tonya Willingham (far right) watches the video a Leadership Shelby County project group created for the foundation.
Each year, Leadership Shelby County sets out to create and build projects and programs that will improve the county. The Leadership Class of 2016 did not disappoint.
“Every year it gets better and better,” said Calvin Gunn, an officer with Leadership Shelby County during the program's May 10 graduation ceremony.
The four project groups in this year’s class set out to help nonprofits, bring information to the public and shared their work at graduation.
Group I worked to develop a video for Blanket Fort Hope, a nonprofit geared toward helping child victims of human trafficking. David Higgins, project leader for Group I, said it is important to talk about child sex trafficking because silence only helps those who are exploiting child victims.
“As long as nobody stands up, they can keep exploiting our children, your children, and this community’s children, and me personally, I am not going to stand for that,” Higgins said.
The video developed by Higgins’ group provides statistics on child sex trafficking and features a high school-aged girl who is manipulated by a boy in a red Ferrari.
“I thought he saw me as special. He promised me love. He promised me forever,” the girl says in the video. “He offered me the world. Instead he took everything from me; he broke me. I was just a dollar sign to him.”
The video is available on Blanket Fort Hope’s Facebook page, and in the future will be used as a marketing tool to educate community members about human trafficking. There are also plans to share the video with other sheriff’s offices and school systems in the state.
Group II also sought to distribute information to the community. In their project InAPPropriate, the group gathered information to share with parents about potentially dangerous apps.
“What we wanted to do was to really address what is really a growing challenge for parents, to create an awareness campaign about what’s actually happening on our kids smart phones,” said group member Craig Gray.
In addition to informing parents about what apps their children may be using, InAPPropriate also aims to provide information to parents who want to have open conversations with their kids. The group created a marketing strategy, which includes working with the Alabama Cooperative Extension, the DAY Program of Shelby County and the Boys and Girls Club. There is also a Facebook page where the group will share information about dangerous apps.
Group III worked with Kids First Awareness to develop lessons that taught valuable personal development tools to the students in the program. Kids First Awareness is based out of Alabaster and aims to help at risk children and prepare them for the future through education and resources.
The Leadership Shelby County group developed three lessons – on bullying and character building, on team building and on financial literacy – to teach the students in Kids First and plan to develop a network of volunteers throughout the county. Their goal for sustainability is to have business and community leaders from Shelby County volunteer their time at Kids First Awareness and help the students in the program.
Group IV partnered with another non-profit, the Wings of Hope Pediatric Foundation, to spread the foundation’s message. The foundation was founded in 2010 by Tonya Willingham and Dr. Dan Trotman with a goal to help the families of terminally ill children. There is no one service provided by the foundation, but rather it will help families with anything from car payments to lawn services.
“We don’t limit ourselves to the type of service we provide,” Willingham said.
Members of this Leadership Shelby County project group helped Wings of Hope Pediatric Foundation by creating a video for the foundation, building a new website, assisting with legal papers and developing a social media plan. The group’s goal is to share information about the foundation and garner more support for its cause.
“We adopted with our goal that we would try to increase awareness on two levels,” said group member Mark Boardman. “First, the tragic part of it, that is to increase awareness of the families and get more families to be served by this project. …The second is to build awareness with donors and those involved in the funding with these programs.”
At the end of the program, members of the class of 2016 walked away with five lessons, said class representative Mechelle Wilder. They learned the importance of teamwork, the importance of sharpening themselves by learning more about Shelby County, they learned how to correct mistakes, they learned the importance of character and behavior, and they learned how to leave their mark.
Information about each of the groups’ projects will be posted on the Leadership Shelby County website at leadershipshelbycounty.wordpress.com.
During the graduation ceremony, three students were presented with a $2,500 scholarship. The students completed Youth Leadership Shelby County in their junior year and then applied for the scholarship during their senior year.
The recipients were Evangel Christian School student Allison Pittman, Pelham High School student Peyton Strickland and Chelsea High School student Luke Walker.
