LEAPNOW - What Others Say about LEAPYEAR

What Others Say about LEAPYEAR

Articles about LEAPYEAR and LEAPYEAR Students in the Media:

Limitless Leap - "Seventeen-year-old Tallie Winquist walked alone each day through a village in northern India. Calling it a trip through time, she watched as indigenous women carried clay pots on their heads, while others milked cows or looked after naked children as they played, scurrying through the subcontinent's ancient dust. Unlike most other American girls her age, Tallie was not on her way to study English in a local classroom--she was there to teach it. For her, traveling to the East was the opportunity of a lifetime and a personal leap into a bold new future..." (The Bohemian)

Juneau sisters get college credit while traveling the globe - "When Tessina Davidson was caring for cheetahs in Africa this year and her sister, Jessica, was salsa dancing in Cuba last year, both were earning college credits. No, they are not daughters of international diplomats but recent Juneau-Douglas High School grads who, like many of their peers, were not sure what to do with their lives..." (Associated Press)

Ashland High School Alum Takes Year Off From College To Study In India - Briana Lescher, a 2005-06 LEAPYEAR India student, held a community fundraiser to help her pay for tuition. "'I look at this as such an amazing opportunity,' Lescher said. 'I think we live in a bubble in the U.S. I think it’s important to increase our knowledge of what the world has to offer and different ways of living. I’m really excited to see how I deal with certain unexpected challenges. I expect to gain more clarity about myself and the world around me...'" (Ashland Daily Tidings)

FEEDBACK RECEIVED FROM STUDENTS:

The following poem was written by our most recent LEAPYEAR India group who completed their program on April 30th, 2008. As an expression of gratitude, they wrote this "Ode to Maacama." (Maacama is the name of our California campus.) The fourteen members of the group each contributed one stanza to the poem. The poem expresses many aspects of the less visible value they derived from doing a LEAPYEAR:

Ode to Maacama

Thank you for reminding me to breathe,

for seeing me and helping me to see.

Thank you for guiding me to the ability to flow like a river,

that awareness is the only way to lasting happiness.

Thank you for being home in the truest sense,

for calling me back each time I need the reminder.

Of the constant journey, the ebb and flow, remembering to laugh along the way.

To the home that gave me home,

thank you for being the finger that showed me the moon.

From a single lush drop of water the world is washed like an ocean with joy.

Thank you for ferocity.

Thank you for showing me my true self,

and for guiding me so that I learn to stand

on my own two feet and trust my own heart.

Thank you for embodying the change you teach,

for creating a space to be vulnerable,

and for rooting me in awareness.

Thank you for lighting up my sorrows,

and bringing me to newfound level ground.

Thank you for helping me discover

a set of permanent values in the world of impermanent necessities.

Thank you for being the voice for integrity within my life.

Thank you for being you.

Thank you for everything, for that is what you give,

love and support when we are far from home.

Thank you for giving me life where I did not know I had none.

Thank you for a dreamer's heart,

a living promise of what can be.

Thank you for passion,

for laughing and crying,

for loving and dying,

right beside us,

a thousand times over.

All our love - LEAPYEAR India 2007/08

A note received on 4/15/07 accompanying a college graduation announcement. This student completed his LEAPYEAR in May of 2004 (Maacama is the LEAPYEAR campus):

I owe much of this degree to you.

Thank you for being the spark that lit my fire of exploration, love and enchantment.

I still feel Maacama pumping through my veins!

Love and gratitude.

A thank you note received 4/30/08 from a student on the final day of her LEAPYEAR India program:

Before LEAPYEAR, I struggled with my arrogance and deceptive actions. Please remember that you have guided me to truth, integrity and a capable will. Many thanks and many blessings!

Email rec'd 10/26/07 from a LEAPYEAR Central America graduate. She did her internship in Australia in Spring 2007, and is now living there again:

I am back in Australia. In Melbourne at the moment but I am living in Sydney. Its amazing. I am so happy. Ridiculously happy. Everything is just as I want it to be. I have found my bliss and I am living every moment of it. I think of LEAPYEAR and the group and all you at Maacama (the LEAPNOW campus) every day. Always there will be a place in my heart for each of you. You all supported me so much and really gave me beautiful wings to spread and now I have flown.

Postcard from LEAPYEAR student on his internship in Cambodia on 10/29/2007 - The postcard shows Cambodian children with a cage full of birds:

Dear LEAPYEAR staff, The back of a postcard is far too small to dance thoroughly with caged bird metaphors. Let me just say that they sell caged birds at the pagoda here, so Buddhists can buy them, and free them for merit. I feel like a freed bird, purchased with your hard work and deep love. I owe my freedom to your intentions, and its manifestation from the discovery of my own intentions. Greetings from Cambodia and deep love and thanks!

Email from LEAPYEAR student - from Varanasi, India - received 10/2007:

...nothing has ever been more fulfilling and growth provoking than my experiences within LEAPYEAR thus far. I feel completely committed to my group, to this sharing of community, to feedback, and to witnessing Life alongside perspectives other than my own. Being here with these people has taught me so much. Participating in the first retreat taught me so much, and opened me to the possibilities of whatever is to come. I could never express how grateful I am to the staff, for allowing that space to exist. For the first time in my life, I really feel like an adult. And that power is coming from within myself. Unfinished, undefined...but equal. Challengeable, malleable...but fearless. Not to say that I feel invincible. I just have never been able to allow so much joy to fill my being, and to feel so at peace even though there have been some periods of physical and emotional discomfort here...sometimes pain. I can only expect there is more to come, but I feel ready to let it Be.

Email from LEAPYEAR alum - received 7/20/2007 - the student did LEAPYEAR in 2005/06:

To the staff of LEAPYEAR, a program that continues to shape me into the human being I am today: The memories I have are stored as photos on my computer, or conversations with my LEAPYEAR family, but the subtleties of my experience show up everyday. These instances are drawn from my being, times where I make a decision or talk about myself and I realize how one I have become with my life experiences. The times, such as today, when I get to actually talk about LEAPYEAR separate from my personal journey...the hard skills I learned, the places I went and the experiences I had all told from the heart...I can't help but become passionate.

I am so proud of my resume, a testament to me and what I have accomplished. I remember when I first signed up for the program, I wanted to become a man of action due to how passive I was rolling through life. The traveling and inner journey woke me up and fueled a desire to learn about myself and the world, with a direction through food/wine.

None of this happened by accident, which is why I wanted to write to the LEAPYEAR staff and remind you that you have done wonderful things and continue to do so with your program. Quite simply, Thank You.

LEAPYEAR India 2006 Graduate - letter received May 7, 2007:

"I am so incredibly amazed by this year and this experience I have just completed. It's as though the world has opened its arms to me, and I know that I will continue to achieve all that I dream of.

I am filled with more gratitude and more love and more respect than I had ever thought possible. This year is one I will hold in my heart forever. I have come out a new person, and I feel complete. I found something this year that had been missing in my life. My mind often drifts to the laughs we have shared together, the tears we have shared together, the experience we have shared together.

This program is life-changing, eye-opening, and truly one of a kind. I had never expected to gain this much, and I have realized I still have a whole life ahead of me. You are people I will never forget, and I cannot wait to meet again, and hug you.

Thank you for the lessons, thank you for love, and thank you for giving me back my life."

Kirsten - LEAPYEAR 02/03 participant:

"...LEAPYEAR so far has been the most meaningful year of my life. I have learned more and grown more in this time than I ever thought imaginable...certainly more than my year in university or in all 4 years of high school put together. From LEAPYEAR I have gained a powerful foundation for a life of growth, meaning, clarity, and integrity. With the tools LEAPYEAR has given me, I discover more each day what it means to live a life of learning, loving and ever-returning to myself and my path."

FEEDBACK RECEIVED FROM PARENTS OF STUDENTS:

Email rec'd 9/20/07 - from the father of a 2006 LEAPYEAR student who had a challenging internship in India in spring 2007:

Our daughter has started her freshman year at Scripps College in Claremont CA, part of the Claremont Consortium. Her year with LEAPNOW, with all of its highs and lows, has made Hanna a vastly more mature and confident young adult. She absolutely adores Scripps and is thrilled to be there. A year ago she was terrified and thinking seriously about going to a state school closer to home because she wasn't going to be able to compete with all those smart kids. Now she's is psychologically "loaded for bear."

When she was at her lowest point in north India and witnessed how bleak the future was for so many young women there, I wrote to her and asked her to consider why Eleanor Scripps thought the world needed an all women's school and why she should attend one. Because of LEAPNOW she has an exceptional perspective on the opportunity that stands before her. She also has the confidence to make the most of Scripps and those opportunities that follow on from it.

In retrospect, I think she gained more from the troubles she faced, than anything else. I certainly wouldn't want her to be that sick and lonely again but she prevailed and is soaring now. Our Best Wishes to everyone at LEAPNOW for the coming year.

Mother of a 2004 Central America Program graduate - email received in May, 2007:

"Just a note to let you know that I frequently think of you and LEAPYEAR and the marvelous magic you wove into Jesse's life - and into mine as well. The program was exactly what he needed at the time...to realize that his life has an internal focus and that he indeed is the "master of his fate and the captain of his soul". You redefined my mission in life, vicariously, through his.

"He's doing such good work at this moment in his life: "A" work at the University of Oregon and many internship/volunteer programs with Spanish speaking immigrants. I am happy with him for the way his life has continued to blossom since LEAPYEAR. I have to admit, though, that I am glad that he has kept his essential "Jesse-ism"..... His brother visited him last week in Eugene to find him with a gigantic slingshot, transporting water balloons across the street into a park.

"Thank you again for creating, sponsoring and conducting such wonderful, meaningful work with young people and their parents."

Mother whose son did the 2005/06 Central America Program:

"There is hardly a day goes by when I don't think about Isaac and the profoundly amazing year that he had with LEAPYEAR. I have been meaning to write a letter to you and all the staff, thanking you for all the opportunities that you provided. Your program is like walking down a hall with a thousand doors beckoning to be opened. I think it is hardest to write a thank you for the most profound things. If I had to say, "Thank you for the delicious meal," that would be easy. But LEAPNOW offers such an multifaceted program that touches so many parts of a person's heart and soul, that I honestly wouldn't know where to begin. It is ironic is that I am a writer, but you have me stumped! Just know that you are in my heart, both for what you did for Isaac, but what you also did for Michael and me. Your ceremony last February was meaningful beyond words."

Parents of a son AND daughter in the 2004/05 program:

"I think our kids' experiences with LEAPYEAR are the most significant and transformational endeavors, not only of their lives, but of our whole family's. I know they both feel you guys are a part of their family (and ours) and that Maacama will always be a spiritual home for them. Thank you for what you have given us all."

Wendy - LEAPYEAR 02/03 Parent:

"I want to let you know how much I appreciate your efforts in putting together such an amazing transformational weekend for the kids and parents last weekend... I am not one for ceremonies and rituals. I am Jewish and have struggled with Judaism all my life. I've never felt comfortable in a synagogue... and the rituals involved in the religion have never had meaning for me. I went into last weekend rather skeptical of the ceremonies you planned. They sounded somewhat corny on paper. Was I wrong! I found the sweat and the ceremonies both Friday and Saturday night to be filled with great meaning, love and joy in a way I've never experienced. I think marking the passage to adulthood for the kids was important for them and equally important for parents...Just being around so much love and caring and support had such a huge impact...the impact on parents being nearly as huge as the impact on the kids directly participating in it. Providing them the chance to take whatever time is needed, be it a year or longer, to just focus on themselves and begin to figure it out is huge... We never grow too old to take the time to look at our lives and to try to figure it out just a bit more.. I hope my other 3 boys, ages 11, 13 and 16 will find their way to you ...eventually. I can't imagine a better opportunity for them."

Greg - LEAPYEAR 02/03 Parent:

"One of the most profound, joyful experiences I've had with anyone, was the experience I had with my daughter when we participated together in the LEAPYEAR rite of passage. You can quote me, pass on my address, or call on me to help in any way."

Rachel - LEAPYEAR 02/03 Parent:

"You know for us it has been more than just another program. There has been no other place where we have been able to experience a holistic approach to facilitating intellectual and personal growth. I have believed that the "heart understands the mind" and in no other educational institution- if I may call it this for this moment- has there been care and attention to nurture these other realms of heart and spirit so sincerely. You have challenged my daughter and you have challenged me, and I too have grown as an adult and as a parent rather than continue as the passive participant in my daughter's education and personal growth experiences."

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