Junior Volunteers are an important part of both the Afterschool program and the summertime Festival of Fun program. During the school year, Junior Volunteers are those students in middle school, grades 6-8. (School year volunteers in High School are considered to be full volunteers.) Summer time JV’s are all students who have completed any grade above 7^th.

Junior Volunteers have busy lives at the Shack. They are expected to do everything a normal student is expect to, as well as prepare snack for all of the children, clean up the snack, help with homework, and do any other task asked of them by staff. They do all this work secondary to their homework and academics, which of course should be their primary focus.

Afterschool JV’s do all these tasks under the direction of their Junior Leader, one of their own ranks who has been elected by staff to be in charge, one day at a time. The program is set up so that if the group messes up, it’s the Junior Leader who gets in trouble…if they didn’t ask for help from staff. This program has enjoyed great success as students have learned about leadership, responsibility, and fairness. Junior Leaders are chosen on a rotating basis, once a month, with one youth being the leader every Monday, another every Tuesday, etc, until a new month is begun and new leaders are chosen by the staff. Additionally, occasionally JV’s are taken off-site for projects in the community.

Summertime JV’s work directly with the youth groups in the morning, and go off-site in the afternoon for community service/beautification and reward trips. In the past, these trips have included everything from home repair, to grass mowing, to maintaining the Tugboat Depot playground. They work hard, and they play hard. Generally, the summer program ends with a lock-in which is sure to include a giant water-balloon fight and the JV’s finding out the hard way that they can’t get one over on the staff.