Chad Spillers introduced his guests and speakers for today, Dakota, Kaylee and Brianna, all from the Reach Mentoring Program in Cloquet. He added that Dakota had once been a Jr. Rotarian in our club.
.png)
Dakota began by saying that he has spoken 3 times to our club, and this is the first time he's talked about the SOS program, which stands for Students Offering Support. In December of 2016 Dakota and others from Reach went to a conference on suicide prevention, which led to organizing the SOS program in Cloquet. Kaylee added that on the bus coming home from the conference they decided to meet every week after lunch to plan out how to branch out and offer a whole range of mental health prevention mentoring. They established SOS for Carlton County high schools including Cloquet, Esko, Carlton, Moose Lake, and Fond du Lac. Dakota explained that each school has its own topics and service projects. Some work with the Restorative Justice program. They were invited to a conference in St. Paul, and another conference in Duluth. Brianna said they went to Ashland to tell how they started the SOS program. So far they have worked with 250 students through SOS.
Excerpts taken from the Cloquet Rotary log, edited by Rachael Martin