by Cristela Guerra, The News Press

At the beginning of the week a group of teenagers looked more like prisoners than willing participants in a small room at the back of Cypress Presbyterian Church. By Wednesday a 20-year consultant had six animated students coming out of their shells in spite of themselves.

“They no longer were the forced few whose parents had made them attend a Youth Leadership Summer Camp called Rising Stars”, said Betsy Allen, who led the course. “Within, I would say, the first hour and a half, we talked about keeping an open mind,” the consultant said. “They took a break and there was a huge difference when they returned.”

That difference is even more pronounced a week later, after their Graduation on Friday.

The program, which is in its first week, is hosted by Club Z!, a local in-home tutoring service that serves Lee and Collier counties. The Director, Dan Allen, said he and his wife were trained to adapt Rising Stars to teenagers. Allen originally taught the course to upper management administrators to work better with their employees.

The program, which costs $500 for a week, from 9am to 4pm, is being offered half-price for the summer sessions.

“Through Betsy I was able to access Rising Stars and the key issue is that the program is facilitated and not just taught,” Dan Allen said. “It’s not just telling them how to do something, but asking them how they think something ought to be done.”

Lessons include chapters on citizenship and community, what it means to be a leader, and time management.

Taylor Morgan, 17, a senior at Bishop Verot High School, and Kaylee Bartholow, 16, a junior at Ida Baker High School, admit they were reluctant. “It was a great class,” Morgan said. “It encouraged me to have a good attitude, specifically toward school.”

Bartholow nodded in agreement. “Especially just the way it made you realize how these lessons will help you in the long run,” she said. “I now want to take pride in everything I do.”

The couple hope to offer the program to schools in the public and private sector as an extracurricular activity.

Parents, like Cathy Anderson-Young of Fort Myers, took a leadership course as part of the Civil Air Patrol when she was 17. “I only wish I could have done something like this when I was her age,” Anderson-Young said. Isabella “Izzy” Anderson-Young, 9, was the youngest of the group and begged her mother to be included.