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Student Organizers "Bring It!" at Wayside

Contributing Author Luis Rangel of NC H.E.A.T.

A gathering of 30 high school and college students came together here at Wayside in February to build leadership and youth organizing skills at the first annual Bring It!: Student Organizers Weekend. Participants hailed from schools and communities in North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland, Virginia and DC. Led by Virginia Leavell, Jon Berger and Samatha Miller the group held workshops focused on facilitating meetings, organizing events, and general knowledge with youth organizers.

Among them was NC H.E.A.T. member, Maria Padilla. She said, "Bring It! was a great experience. At Wayside, I learned about strategizing and facilitating with a wonderful group of people from all over. The chef was absolutely amazing, and the people were very genuine and kind."

Through training time, downtime and mealtime - with delicious food provided by the amazing cook Michele Baskin - many new friendships took root. Ce Garrison, who attends George Mason University said, "in the presence of really good people, we learn more then we could ever hope to. We talked about our dreams and the things we aspired to do... from those experiences we found a common ground on which to stand with people we had known for a five minute lifetime there to hold us up."

Though everyone came equally ready to learn and share, some people had less organizing experience, which made for a magnificent environment in which the less experienced people found mentors during the weekend. Luis Oyola, a member of Wayside's Core Collective, in attendance during the weekend said, "I came to see students talk about what it takes to organize in our own schools to then go back and actually do it. The greatest part was the broad range of people who are entirely new to radical organizing mixing with people who've been at it for years on end."

Leading several of the workshops was Lisa Fithian, a seasoned labor organizer, author, and movement elder who began her work as a student organizer in the 70's and has since worked on major campaigns for unions in DC, Los Angeles, and Denver. On Saturday night the group gathered around a campfire to hear Lisa share stories that were not only inspiring but also brutally sincere about how much work has to be done before we can be content with the world and the society we live in, and how important it is that students, as well as teachers, help in one way or another.

At the end of the weekend, after all the workshops had concluded on the sunny Sunday afternoon, the sadness about having to part was almost as tangible as the happiness everyone felt from new friendships and knowledge. We'll all look forward to next year's "Bring It!", when student organizers will again come to Wayside to sharpen their skills and build the bonds of transformational change.