Future Leaders Institute promotes student projects

For the past two years, Albany High School students have had the opportunity to participate in the Future Leaders Institute (FLI), a program devoted to presenting teenagers with the chance to pursue their passions and translate them into community-benefiting projects.

This year Albany High expanded its program to include four teams of twelve students, compared to last year’s single team. The students’ passions range from creative writing, to interior design, to Italian-American culture. Each participant went through an entire year of planning and organizing in order to make their final project a reality.

Junior Rachel Krow-Boniske pursued her passion for cooking and applied it to her goal of promoting peace between Israelis and Palestinians and raising awareness about the conflict. Her work culminated in a community event including homemade Middle Eastern food and featuring a discussion between Israeli-American and Palestinian-American activists in order to promote dialogue.

Sophomore Anna Reutinger combined her infatuation with both music and visual art to promote and produce a benefit concert for La Familia, an organization that provides music education for people with developmental disabilities. Anna promoted the show with her own hand-made silk-screened posters and sold T-shirts of her own design at the show. Her concert featured local bands including Tricky Fish, The Happy Adams, The Symptom, and The Look.

Junior Artemis Jenkins created a free after-school visual arts program for elementary school students. Artemis has always been interested in visual art, and noticed a significant lack of arts education within the Albany school district. Her class meets every Tuesday and is run by herself and other high school student volunteers. By giving students a chance to volunteer on a drop-in basis she hopes to promote community service in the student body as well.

As the year comes to a close, all of the FLI teams’ final presentations are fast approaching. The final presentations are open to the community and are an opportunity for each participant to share their accomplishments from the year. Upcoming presentations include the Sondra-Barbara team on Tuesday May 22nd from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library and the DeHart-Murray team on Wednesday May 30th from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at Albany High.

2 Responses

1. 9:16 PM on May 27th, 2007Anonymous:

   YAY FLI!!

2. 10:45 AM on May 30th, 2007madeline:

   WOO HOO

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