Georgia HOBY Newsletter:

Fifty-Sixth Edition, February 23, 2016

Featured Alumna: Bliss McMichael '05

It’s hard to believe that I have been involved with HOBY for more than 10 years! My experiences as an ambassador and volunteer have been nothing short of life-changing. No one would have thought that HOBY would turn a once shy high school sophomore into the self-proclaimed “Queen of the Banana Cheer.”

Over the years, many people have asked me, “What is HOBY?” It is often difficult to sum up HOBY in a few words, but for me, HOBY is home. It is the place where I feel most like myself, where I am challenged to be the best version of myself, and where I am encouraged to pursue my dreams. The support system that I have gained through HOBY has been invaluable throughout high school, college, and pharmacy school. 

My passion for leadership can be attributed primarily to my involvement with HOBY. I have witnessed how HOBY empowers youth to become more effective leaders, innovators, and members of society. As a volunteer, I have had the opportunity to encourage students to be instrumental leaders in their homes, schools, and communities, yet they have left a bigger impact on me through sharing their passion for life and motivation for change.

I am forever grateful to have been a part of HOBY for the past 11 years, and I look forward to many more years of service with the program!  

HOBY Info:

Amazon Smile

• If your shop at Amazon, the switch to Amazon Smile (https://smile.amazon.com/ch/94-2861279). It is the exact same website, but 0.5% of purchases will be donated to a charity of your choice.
• Choose Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership (Atlanta, GA) as your charity!

Social Networking!!!

• Find us on Facebook: GA HOBY Alumni
• Follow us on Twitter: @GA_HOBY  
• Follow us on Instagram: hoby_georgia
• Follow us on Vine: Georgia HOBY
• Follow us on SnapChat: hobygeorgia
• Check our the website: www.gahoby.org
• Check out our YouTube channel: HOBY Georgia
• Check out http://hobycheers.wikidot.com/list-of-hoby-cheers for awesome cheers

Hours

• Keep logging them! Can you accomplish the 100 Hour Challenge? Georgia HOBY knows that you can. Here is the place to do so: https://reg.hoby.org/HOBYL4S/login.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2fHOBYL4S%2f
• Need ideas for Volunteering projects? Email gahobyalumniadvisor@gmail.com, check the HOBY website: hoby.org, and/or research into what your community needs!
• How far has your Chain Reaction of Kindness reached?

This Blog

• If you would like post a "My Favorite HOBY Experience" in the future on this blog, then email gahobyfundraising@gmail.com also with your response!
• Be on the lookout for the next Newsletter or My Favorite HOBY Experience Post

Georgia HOBY Newsletter:

Fifty-Fifth Edition, February 15, 2016

Featured Alumnus: Thaxton Lipscomb '12

     HOBY was a very pivotal experience in my life. The programs, lessons, and relationships this one weekend fostered would create such a lasting impact moving into my future. HOBY forced me to step outside my comfort zone, to see others as what they are, people. HOBY was able to celebrate our differences while showing us our common theme of humanity. In this seminar we grew individually, as a group, and as a cohort. In addition to meeting people from inside my own group, and the staff I was able to meet people from other groups and from the various parts of Georgia. Following my departure I remained in contact with several of my fellow ambassadors, and they are now some of the closest relationships I have in my young adult life. It is because of the skills and confidence I discovered in HOBY my sophomore year, that the two years following I was able to accomplish many great goals such as becoming, the first African American male Student Body President in my high school's history, the campaign manager for my high school in winning the Southern Association of Student Councils presidency and bring the conference back to Georgia for the first time in 40 years, a Gates Millennium Scholar, and AJC metro Atlanta senior of the year. It was because of HOBY many of these things came to be. Due to how life changing, enhancing, and eye opening this experience was for me I wanted to be able to pay forward this incredible opportunity afforded to me, and create the same kind of positive catalyst for other young leaders and so wanted to come back as a volunteer.
     Coming back as a volunteer for Georgia HOBY seminars I was able to establish a deep bond with people of all Alumni years, backgrounds, and walks of life, while ensuring ambassadors that followed my cohort had just as amazing and impactful of a time. No matter how little sleep we got, or how much work we had to do, we always had a smile on our face. This smile was not one we had to force or pretend but one of a genuine nature from being around great people who shared themselves, their stories, triumphs and tragedies and cared deeply for one another and this program.
     Outside of Georgia, HOBY has allowed me the platform to be able to connect with people no matter where I am. Though I went through the Georgia HOBY seminar, after graduating high school now attend Clemson University located in Clemson, SC. The great people of HOBY and actions being taken by them to impact the community does not stop at the Georgia border. There are a slew of Outstanding people that I have met through simply wearing a HOBY t-shirt around campus that I have been able to be connected to from the South Carolina HOBY and other state's seminar. The joy and pride we all share no matter what seminar we attended or year is unbelievable as well as the impact they have made on our personal lives, and that we have in turn been able to make on our communities. To put it in layman's terms HOBY is simply...Outstanding.

HOBY Info:

Amazon Smile

• If your shop at Amazon, the switch to Amazon Smile (https://smile.amazon.com/ch/94-2861279). It is the exact same website, but 0.5% of purchases will be donated to a charity of your choice.
• Choose Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership (Atlanta, GA) as your charity!

Social Networking!!!

• Find us on Facebook: GA HOBY Alumni
• Follow us on Twitter: @GA_HOBY  
• Follow us on Instagram: hoby_georgia
• Follow us on Vine: Georgia HOBY
• Follow us on SnapChat: hobygeorgia
• Check our the website: www.gahoby.org
• Check out our YouTube channel: HOBY Georgia
• Check out http://hobycheers.wikidot.com/list-of-hoby-cheers for awesome cheers

Hours

• Keep logging them! Can you accomplish the 100 Hour Challenge? Georgia HOBY knows that you can. Here is the place to do so: https://reg.hoby.org/HOBYL4S/login.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2fHOBYL4S%2f
• Need ideas for Volunteering projects? Email gahobyalumniadvisor@gmail.com, check the HOBY website: hoby.org, and/or research into what your community needs!
• How far has your Chain Reaction of Kindness reached?

This Blog

• If you would like post a "My Favorite HOBY Experience" in the future on this blog, then email gahobyfundraising@gmail.com also with your response!
• Be on the lookout for the next Newsletter or My Favorite HOBY Experience Post

Georgia HOBY Newsletter:

Fifty-Fourth Edition, February 8, 2016

Featured Alumna: Emily Bell '14

     When someone says HOBY, I think about the magic of the amazing weekend I had as an ambassador and the even cooler weekend I spent behind the scenes as a junior staffer. While those weekends were unforgettable, it was the HOBY values that I strive to embody today that really made those two weekends so impactful. As an ambassador, you are pushed to your leadership limits. Series of fun, seemingly simple games challenge you as a leader, follower, speaker, and a listener. But it wasn't the games that remembered after the weekend was over. It was the values I learned and the friendships I made that stuck with me.
    I think what's so special about HOBY is what you learn from the weekend Not only did I learn how to lead, but I learned how to listen. I was able to see how my contributions to my community, no matter how small, could make a difference. I was inspired to go out in my community and make my mark on what I was passionate about. This newfound knowledge and confidence transformed me into a better version of myself. A version that I didn't even know existed. But our fearless HOBY leaders saw that spark inside of me and my fellow ambassadors and with their guidance, we grew that spark into a fire.
    My ambassador year, our theme was Catching Fire. I don't think I
could have picked a better theme. HOBY has a sort of magic that lights the fire inside of you. It is this magic and the knowledge I gained that I take away with me from my 2 amazing HOBY weekends. I am who I am today because of the magic of HOBY and the fire and passion that it created will never die out.

HOBY Info:

Amazon Smile

• If your shop at Amazon, the switch to Amazon Smile (https://smile.amazon.com/ch/94-2861279). It is the exact same website, but 0.5% of purchases will be donated to a charity of your choice.
• Choose Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership (Atlanta, GA) as your charity!

Social Networking!!!

• Find us on Facebook: GA HOBY Alumni
• Follow us on Twitter: @GA_HOBY  
• Follow us on Instagram: hoby_georgia
• Follow us on Vine: Georgia HOBY
• Follow us on SnapChat: hobygeorgia
• Check our the website: www.gahoby.org
• Check out our YouTube channel: HOBY Georgia
• Check out http://hobycheers.wikidot.com/list-of-hoby-cheers for awesome cheers

Hours

• Keep logging them! Can you accomplish the 100 Hour Challenge? Georgia HOBY knows that you can. Here is the place to do so: https://reg.hoby.org/HOBYL4S/login.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2fHOBYL4S%2f
• Need ideas for Volunteering projects? Email gahobyalumniadvisor@gmail.com, check the HOBY website: hoby.org, and/or research into what your community needs!
• How far has your Chain Reaction of Kindness reached?

This Blog

• If you would like post a "My Favorite HOBY Experience" in the future on this blog, then email gahobyfundraising@gmail.com also with your response!
• Be on the lookout for the next Newsletter or My Favorite HOBY Experience Post

Georgia HOBY Newsletter:

Fifty-Third Edition, January 30, 2016

Featured Alumna: Carmen Foskey '12

     Had you asked me on the first day of my HOBY seminar where I thought I would be in 2016, I would not even be able to imagine what my life is like today. At that point in my life, academics were present but not a priority, and my social life seemed far more important than professional or personal development. Learning and leading had always come naturally to me so I wrongly assumed that my natural abilities alone would carry me through life. Luckily, HOBY helped me abandon that mentality and develop a life filled with incredible experiences and opportunity.

     On my second day of HOBY, I sat listening to an alumni who was currently the student body president of the University of Georgia, a scholar in all senses of the word, and a recently accepted law student at Harvard Law School. His presentation contained mostly the standard, generic leadership development information, but it wasn’t the content that sparked my attention. It was the speaker himself, Will Burgess. 

     Will had found a way to harness his natural abilities, and more importantly, to harness those of his peers, classmates, and fellow citizens. He was a leader not by passive acceptance, but by actively working to change the world around him. His resume had not created his exceptional abilities to communicate, organize, and implement. Those characteristics had always been a part of him, but he had chosen to intentionally develop and hone his skills. And if he could do it, I could too.

     Our HOBY weekend came to a close, but the opportunities for success were just beginning. I set my sights on an Ivy League education and began to work towards that goal. I was accepted to Brown University, but decided to defer my enrollment for a year to work on the campaigns for Senator David Perdue, Governor Nathan Deal, and Senator Bill Cassidy. In January of that same year, I moved to Philadelphia to work for a political non-profit, Turning Point USA. I returned home to manage State Representative Shaw Blackmon’s campaign, and when offered a return to Brown, I permanently declined my admission. I moved to Savannah, Georgia to manage the campaign for now-Mayor Eddie DeLoach and while there, applied to the University of Georgia so that I could continue to build my regionalized political network. 

     Looking back, it is quite evident that my weekend at HOBY, and specifically Will Burgess’s words and example, was a critical point in determining the course of my future. It was that weekend I decided to utilize my natural skills and actively pursue my goals and dreams. My life is today is exciting, riveting, challenging, and simply unbelievable because of this organization and I will forever hold HOBY in the highest regard.

HOBY Info:

Amazon Smile

• If your shop at Amazon, the switch to Amazon Smile (https://smile.amazon.com/ch/94-2861279). It is the exact same website, but 0.5% of purchases will be donated to a charity of your choice.
• Choose Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership (Atlanta, GA) as your charity!

Social Networking!!!

• Find us on Facebook: GA HOBY Alumni
• Follow us on Twitter: @GA_HOBY  
• Follow us on Instagram: hoby_georgia
• Follow us on Vine: Georgia HOBY
• Follow us on SnapChat: hobygeorgia
• Check our the website: www.gahoby.org
• Check out our YouTube channel: HOBY Georgia
• Check out http://hobycheers.wikidot.com/list-of-hoby-cheers for awesome cheers

Hours

• Keep logging them! Can you accomplish the 100 Hour Challenge? Georgia HOBY knows that you can. Here is the place to do so: https://reg.hoby.org/HOBYL4S/login.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2fHOBYL4S%2f
• Need ideas for Volunteering projects? Email gahobyalumniadvisor@gmail.com, check the HOBY website: hoby.org, and/or research into what your community needs!
• How far has your Chain Reaction of Kindness reached?

This Blog

• If you would like post a "My Favorite HOBY Experience" in the future on this blog, then email gahobyfundraising@gmail.com also with your response!
• Be on the lookout for the next Newsletter or My Favorite HOBY Experience Post

Georgia HOBY Newsletter:

Fifty-Second Edition, January 22, 2016

Featured Volunteer: Hunter Quintal (First Seminar NW '15)

Let me preface this by saying that I was not an ambassador. Unlike many of you, I was not one of the select few from Georgia to be nominated. However, like many of you, I was completely unaware of what HOBY stood for before I became a part of it.

My name is Hunter Quintal and my introduction to and involvement in HOBY is somewhat non-traditional. My best friend from high school is a HOBY alumna and always spoke highly of the program. She would tell me of how her experiences as an ambassador shaped her understanding of her self awareness and self confidence, and how her interactions with other high-achieving students acted as encouragement for her to continue giving her all to her schoolwork and to her community.

When I applied to be a junior facilitator last winter, it was this knowledge that I took with me. Oh yeah, and I also knew was that I would run after parents’ cars, shrieking and hollering. That’s about it. I felt like I knew what I was in for. I felt like the weekend would end too quickly and that I wouldn’t really gain anything in such a short period of time. Boy was I was wrong!

The weekend became endless in the lessons and relationships that I continuously was a part of. I watched before my eyes as the students that I had grown close to became more outgoing, more spirited, more self-assured, more creative, and more visibly inquisitive. These shy students grew into themselves, finding their own voice and all contributing differently to group and individual action and reflection. I learned as they did, and found that I was diversifying my own skills of communication and leadership as I interacted with them. We all became thoughtful community leaders as we confronted issues brought up in the seminar.

That weekend last summer made me evaluate my worldview, and reassess my effectiveness as a member of the various organizations and groups that I call home. The staff and ambassadors were so welcoming and supportive, and I easily fit into that community of humble, gracious, and confident leaders. HOBY inspired me. HOBY reinvented me. I hope to continue serving HOBY and working towards the goals that HOBY stands for. By the way, everyone who has been impacted by HOBY interprets those goals differently. I hope to hear what HOBY means to you. 

HOBY Info:

Amazon Smile

• If your shop at Amazon, the switch to Amazon Smile (https://smile.amazon.com/ch/94-2861279). It is the exact same website, but 0.5% of purchases will be donated to a charity of your choice.
• Choose Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership (Atlanta, GA) as your charity!

Social Networking!!!

• Find us on Facebook: GA HOBY Alumni
• Follow us on Twitter: @GA_HOBY  
• Follow us on Instagram: hoby_georgia
• Follow us on Vine: Georgia HOBY
• Follow us on SnapChat: hobygeorgia
• Check our the website: www.gahoby.org
• Check out our YouTube channel: HOBY Georgia
• Check out http://hobycheers.wikidot.com/list-of-hoby-cheers for awesome cheers

Hours

• Keep logging them! Can you accomplish the 100 Hour Challenge? Georgia HOBY knows that you can. Here is the place to do so: https://reg.hoby.org/HOBYL4S/login.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2fHOBYL4S%2f
• Need ideas for Volunteering projects? Email gahobyalumniadvisor@gmail.com, check the HOBY website: hoby.org, and/or research into what your community needs!
• How far has your Chain Reaction of Kindness reached?

This Blog

• If you would like post a "My Favorite HOBY Experience" in the future on this blog, then email gahobyfundraising@gmail.com also with your response!
• Be on the lookout for the next Newsletter or My Favorite HOBY Experience Post

Georgia HOBY Newsletter:

Fifty-First Edition, January 14, 2016

Featured Alumnus: Abraham Johnson '13

I feel like there are three kinds of HOBY stories

1. Some people invest during the weekend, it changes their lives for the better, and they are satisfied with just being an alum
2. Some people don’t invest themselves during the weekend, they continue their life the same way as before, and they don’t get the value of HOBY
3. Some people go to HOBY, it radically changes their lives for the better, and they find any way to get back to the seminar for years to come because it’s truly outstanding!

I’m a very proud member of the third group. This summer will mark my fourth time at the weekend and I could not be more excited. HOBY means so many things to so many different people, and it’s such a deeply personal experience that I find it a little hard to summarize. The biggest advice I can give to my fellow HOBY alumni is this: find how you can use the skills at HOBY in a way that serve both your community, while also serving yourself. 

Before I went to HOBY, I had always wanted to try theatre. Because of nerves and not really having any theatre friends, I had never really gotten up the courage to go out for it. Throughout the seminar weekend, we got these little opportunities to watch and participate in performances: from bigger things like the Talent Show, to smaller opportunities like sizzling and singing in front of fellow ambassadors. After meeting ambassadors who were incredibly talented and accomplished in their own school-theatre-bubbles, I left the weekend with a new perspective. Since then, I spent the next three years pursuing theatre-- but not in the self-fulfilling way that some theatre people pursue. Theatre has absolutely been a rewarding experience for me, but the thing that really stuck with me, relating to HOBY, is the opportunity to apply the seminar’s skills to just about any passion that the ambassadors have. Community-building doesn’t have to look like can-drives and car washes for charity. In theatre, I apply HOBY’s leadership skills whenever directing a show, taking direction, or working behind the scenes. The social justice aspect of HOBY has been applied incredibly when thinking about inherent racism and exclusion in the theatre community.

This is what I’m trying to say: whether you’re in theatre, or sports, or other academic focuses, find a way to combine HOBY’s lessons with your own passions. This is the most realistic way to keep that HOBY high going past the seminar. In the words of Howard Thurman, “Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

HOBY Info:

Amazon Smile

• If your shop at Amazon, the switch to Amazon Smile (https://smile.amazon.com/ch/94-2861279). It is the exact same website, but 0.5% of purchases will be donated to a charity of your choice.
• Choose Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership (Atlanta, GA) as your charity!

Social Networking!!!

• Find us on Facebook: GA HOBY Alumni
• Follow us on Twitter: @GA_HOBY  
• Follow us on Instagram: hoby_georgia
• Follow us on Vine: Georgia HOBY
• Follow us on SnapChat: hobygeorgia
• Check our the website: www.gahoby.org
• Check out our YouTube channel: HOBY Georgia
• Check out http://hobycheers.wikidot.com/list-of-hoby-cheers for awesome cheers

Hours

• Keep logging them! Can you accomplish the 100 Hour Challenge? Georgia HOBY knows that you can. Here is the place to do so: https://reg.hoby.org/HOBYL4S/login.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2fHOBYL4S%2f
• Need ideas for Volunteering projects? Email gahobyalumniadvisor@gmail.com, check the HOBY website: hoby.org, and/or research into what your community needs!
• How far has your Chain Reaction of Kindness reached?

This Blog

• If you would like post a "My Favorite HOBY Experience" in the future on this blog, then email gahobyfundraising@gmail.com also with your response!
• Be on the lookout for the next Newsletter or My Favorite HOBY Experience Post

Georgia HOBY Newsletter:

Fiftieth Edition, January 8, 2016

Featured Alumna: Megan Franken '08

If someone had told me in June of 2008, I would be transformed from the timid sophomore who was buried in her books to an empowered, outspoken junior after just three days, I would have honestly not believed them. From my first seminar as an ambassador 8 years ago to every seminar since that I have been blessed to volunteer at, I am empowered in a different way to redefine my leadership roles by the interactions with not only my mentors and friends I have met through HOBY, but by the new group of ambassadors that are embarking on their first HOBY experience. HOBY has given me way more than leadership skills though; I have gained an irreplaceable HOBY family. My HOBY family grows with each seminar as I gain connections with the ambassadors in my group or Junior Staff assisting with the operational side of HOBY. I am also able to nurture my existing relationships with the staff that though I sometimes am only able to see once or twice a year at HOBY events, even though I speak to them daily because of the connection we have. Georgia HOBY has transformed and continues to transform me into a leader who grows, adapts, and evolves and I am eternally grateful for this program as well as every individual that plays a part in each seminar.

HOBY Info:

Amazon Smile

• If your shop at Amazon, the switch to Amazon Smile (https://smile.amazon.com/ch/94-2861279). It is the exact same website, but 0.5% of purchases will be donated to a charity of your choice.
• Choose Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership (Atlanta, GA) as your charity!

Social Networking!!!

• Find us on Facebook: GA HOBY Alumni
• Follow us on Twitter: @GA_HOBY  
• Follow us on Instagram: hoby_georgia
• Follow us on Vine: Georgia HOBY
• Follow us on SnapChat: hobygeorgia
• Check our the website: www.gahoby.org
• Check out our YouTube channel: HOBY Georgia
• Check out http://hobycheers.wikidot.com/list-of-hoby-cheers for awesome cheers

Hours

• Keep logging them! Can you accomplish the 100 Hour Challenge? Georgia HOBY knows that you can. Here is the place to do so: https://reg.hoby.org/HOBYL4S/login.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2fHOBYL4S%2f
• Need ideas for Volunteering projects? Email gahobyalumniadvisor@gmail.com, check the HOBY website: hoby.org, and/or research into what your community needs!
• How far has your Chain Reaction of Kindness reached?

This Blog

• If you would like post a "My Favorite HOBY Experience" in the future on this blog, then email gahobyfundraising@gmail.com also with your response!
• Be on the lookout for the next Newsletter or My Favorite HOBY Experience Post