Silverwood Park Teen Arts Council (STAC) is looking for volunteers for June 2022–March 2023! I have been volunteering at Silverwood Park as a member of STAC since the 2018-2019 volunteer year and have made many wonderful connections. As a member, I’ve been able to work with a great group of other teens to plan, host, and run teen-focused events. I really recommend joining STAC!
I really love creating the haunted trail every fall. One of my favorites was the year we set up a zip line and hung a ghost from it that flew across the trail. Most years, we have teen volunteers in costumes hiding in the woods to jump out and frighten the guided tours. Some volunteers really enjoy being the tour guide, but I most enjoy being out on the trail spooking our guests and ensuring that everything is running smoothing.
STAC members also get to explore pupperteering in the Ned the Naturalist puppet shows. I loved playing Trasher, Doominator of Nature! Trasher may be a trash can but he’s also a very fun character who just never seems to learn, no matter how many times Ned explains the importance of protecting the natural world. He’s garbage, and he’s out to destroy the environment. I enjoyed developing the perfect voice to express the true nature of this misguided trash can.
Being a member of STAC also opens you up to all the other fantastic volunteer opportunities at Silverwood:
I particularly enjoy volunteering as a teen counselor for the Nature Protector‘s summer camp where I teach small children how to build boffers and wage mock battles. We spend the beginning of this camp teaching the campers arts and crafts themed around fantasy weapons, armor, magic, and nature including how to build boffers. On the second to last day, I spend part of the day teaching the campers proper sword fighting techniques and boffering etiquette. On the final day of camp, we have a game of capture the flag. Pre COVID-19, I recruited a small group of my fellow teen LARPers, and we waged epic capture-the-flag battles parkwide.
Silverwood’s Field Trip is an annual celebration of the arts and nature of Silverwood Park. This free outdoor family event has many activities that need volunteer helpers, but I most enjoy teaching slacklining and stilt walking.
I volunteered as a unicorn wrangler at two Candy Cane Hunts! I got to be outside for the whole event and interacted with lots of excited youngsters and helped to ensure they had a wonderful time while respecting the boundaries of this magical beast.
I’ve also participated in a sketch at Climate Conversations with other teens from the Go Green Club and the St. Anthony Village Green Team, tended the fire for the Statewide Star Party, taught kitemaking with the Minnesota Kite Society at Winter Play Day, and more.
Volunteering with STAC also helps you build skills and gain experiences that look good on job resumes and college applications. I was a 2020 Distinguished Volunteer Service Award recipient. I appreciate the opportunity to volunteer at Silverwood with the other teens and am grateful for the guidance from Seth, Sam, and Bailey.
STAC applications can be found online at https://tinyurl.com/wgcjpdp and will be accepted until May 1, 2022.
Silverwood Park Teen Arts Council (STAC)
The Silverwood Teen Arts Council (STAC) is a program that offers youth an opportunity to foster leadership, personal growth, artistic vision, and environmental consciousness through volunteerism, group art activities and program planning and participation. This program provides an opportunity for youth to experience assisting artists and naturalists and receive hands-on training in art and nature education. The goal is to increase the youth leaders’ exposure and access to multiple art mediums, points of view, ecosystems, experience in nature, comfort in the outdoors, commitment to stewardship of local resources, and broader engagement with the art world and natural world.
All members of the STAC are asked to volunteer a total of 30 hours over one year at Silverwood. Volunteer activities can range from assisting with seed collection and sorting in the fall to helping with large family programs and events, such as Field Trip or the monthly puppet shows and art-making activities called the Puppet Adventures of Ned the Naturalist. Additionally, Arts Council Members are asked to commit to a monthly meeting on the second Thursday of each month from 4 PM–6 PM to plan Teen Nights and decide what they would like to do as a group. Council members can miss no more than 3 of the monthly meetings. If they miss three meetings, they may continue to show up to the meetings but will no longer be able to have a deciding vote on what the council does. You will also be asked to reassess your commitment to STAC after 3 absences. These meetings are required and count toward the 30 hours of volunteer service. While fulfilling this volunteer requirement, we ask that cell phones be used for emergency purposes only. During volunteer hours, we ask that youth maintain a professional and positive attitude as they will be representing Silverwood and the Park District.
The MISSION of STAC is to provide opportunities for teens to educate themselves and the general public about the environment through art, recreation, and education by engaging with, planning, and leading these various opportunities. As such, it is important that any STAC program incorporate some element of art and some element of the outdoors.
Teen Arts Council Members Designed for youth ages 13–19. In addition to the regular responsibilities that are part of this program, youth will work as a group to determine what art and nature activities will happen at seasonal teen nights at Silverwood. This means that STAC members will meet at least 2 times as a group prior to a teen night to decide what will happen at the teen night and assist with the night of the event.
Goals of Position
- To gain a basic knowledge of art, nature education, and environmental stewardship.
- Increase youth’s exposure to their local ecosystem and experiences in the natural world.
- To gain confidence, comfort, independence, and pride in work completed.
- To apply and grow artistic skills and practice implementing creative solutions.
- Hands-on experience in a non-formal educational environment.
- To gain leadership skills and learn how to apply them.
- To assist Silverwood staff in presenting quality program experiences.
- To gain job skills by working as a group to determine what activities happen at seasonal teen nights.
Job tasks and expectations
- Assist Silverwood Staff in setup and cleanup while volunteering for programs.
- Work with staff in preparing and presenting programs.
- Timely, dependable attendance. Arrangements should be made ahead of time, with Silverwood staff for the program or camp.
- Demonstrate a positive attitude and enthusiasm toward work, program participants, fellow volunteers, and staff.
- Be open-minded to learning how a center for the arts and environment operates.
- Willingness to work both independently and with direction during programs.
Participants
The STAC will consist of 12 to 16 participants ages 13-19.
Project Time Commitment
Members of the STAC will commit to 30 hours of volunteer time at Silverwood over the course of one year. Volunteer time may also include meetings to assist with planning the seasonal Teen Nights at Silverwood. Council members can miss no more than 3 of the monthly meetings. If they miss three meetings, they may continue to show up to the meetings but will no longer be able to have a deciding vote on what the council does. You will also be asked to reassess your commitment to STAC after 3 absences. These meetings are required and count toward the 30 hours of volunteer service. After completion of one year of commitment on the STAC, participants will have a meeting/evaluation and determine whether they would like and are ready to continue to serve with more responsibilities on the STAC for the next year.
Benefits
All members of STAC will be able to attend all-district youth volunteer fun days, receive a Three Rivers FUN Pass, receive a certificate of completion for the program, and be able to determine what activities happen at the seasonal Silverwood Teen Nights. Additionally, planning meetings for Teen Nights will include participation in fun art, nature, and outdoor recreation activities.
- STAC opportunities will allow for job shadowing of staff or experienced volunteers
- Hands-on training in basic art education, naturalist activities, and other related activities
- Opportunity for youth to experience working as an assistant to an artist and naturalist
- Opportunity to collaborate with a professional artist
- Opportunity to strengthen their growth, development, and leadership skills
- Develop confidence
- Hands-on training in art and nature education
- The benefits of volunteering with Three Rivers Park District and the experience of serving their community
- Increase youth’s exposure to their local ecosystems and art mediums
- Experience nature (spend time outdoors)/Increase health
- Become comfortable in the outdoors/Gets you off the couch and OUTDOORS
- Increases confidence and school performance
- Commitment to stewardship of local resources
- Generates greater interest in art, science, and natural resource areas.
- Provides an opportunity to meet other students and make new friends. Benefits to Silverwood as a Facility
Benefits to Silverwood as a Facility
- Foundation of a core group of continuing young volunteers that are dependable, reliable, and have a sense of ownership of Silverwood Park.
- Develop into regular long-term volunteers.
- Mentors and fosters future stewards, staff, board members, advocates, benefactors, exhibiting artists, or members of the arts community.
- A network of hard-working dedicated youth volunteers to support programming and other park operations and projects.
- Strengthens the organization’s relationship with the community. Another service opportunity offered to the community that mentors youth into becoming good stewards of the earth.
(STAC) Application Questions
Applications can be found online at https://tinyurl.com/wgcjpdp
- What are your interests and hobbies?
- What do you think is an important quality for a leader to have and why?
- What future career currently sounds interesting to you and why?
- If you could make any type of art (painting, ceramics, performance, sculpture, drawing, animation, etc.) what would it be and why?
- Have you been a camp participant/camper? If so, where and what type(s) of camp.
- Do you have previous volunteer experience? If so, what did you do and where?
- Do you have any experience working with children or older adults? (i.e. babysitting, younger siblings, volunteering at a nursing home, etc.) If you have been part of the STAC before, what are highlights from your experience, and how do you see your role changing in the coming year?
- Being part of the Silverwood Teen Arts Council (STAC) means committing to volunteering at least 30 hours at Silverwood over one calendar year. Monthly meetings count toward this volunteer commitment. Do you feel you can fulfill this obligation by assisting with our family events, public programs, large group programs, and/or summer camps?
- Part of the responsibilities of the STAC will be to plan teen nights at Silverwood where the committee plans and leads evenings for other teens to engage in activities that combine the arts and the environment in support of Silverwood’s mission. Do you have any ideas for what kinds of activities you would like to have happen at a Silverwood Teen Night? Also, meetings will happen on the second Thursday of each month. Do you see any difficulties in attending at least ¾ of all meetings?
- Would you be able to arrange transportation to the park? If transportation is a barrier, please email Seth Eberle at the above email address to see if we can find a way to assist you.