Hannah Green
Contributing Writer

For my first Compass endeavor, I chose to pursue the leadership compass point.

I accepted an opportunity to serve in a volunteer leadership position with the non-profit organization and extracurricular activity Destination Imagination, or DI.

Each year, DI designs several challenges for teams of students in kindergarten through college to solve using creativity, innovation, scientific reasoning, technical methods and co-operation.

The teams then present their challenge solutions for a group of appraisers and compete with other teams in a series of tournaments.

My job was to train and oversee a group of new volunteers who would serve as challenge appraisers throughout one season.

My several months spent as a DI leader were fun and rewarding but not without challenges.

As anyone who has coordinated volunteers before can tell you it isn’t always an easy task to ensure they are on top of their duties.

I encountered one especially unruly volunteer that offered the opportunity for me to exercise my leadership and management skills.

Despite any obstacles and conflicts that arose throughout the process, it was ultimately wonderful to work closely with passionate people who were generous in their time and efforts for such a worthy cause.

In addition, all of the long days, late nights, set ups, clean ups, emails, phone calls and travel were all worth it just to see the faces of the kids participating in that year’s challenges.

It is incredibly rewarding to be a part of a program that deeply impacts the lives of young people.

Together, we had a successful 2014-2015 DI season.

In fact, in our region, team enrollment in the program grew significantly during that season; that growth has continued into the current year.

If you are interested in learning more about DI for a Compass endeavor of your own, please visit www.idodi.org.