When Shelby Mayor Marilyn John took office in January 2010, she had a specific goal in mind: build strong leadership skills in kids. In 2013, She is well on her way to achieving this goal. She created a program, LeaderShelby, allowing junior high students to experience a day on an actual college campus in May 2012. She made connections with The Ohio State at Mansfield (OSU-M) and North Central State College to open their campuses to students. At first, she reached out to female students. John said, “I wanted to get girls in touch with strong female leaders and get them on a college campus to make it known that college is doable.”
There were a total of 160 students; divided in groups of 12 with LeaderShelby. six different leaders from around Richland County spoke, along with a keynote speaker. John said, “It was a great experience for them and it was an exciting day.”
John never planned on taking the program outside of Shelby, but that’s what happened. After the event, OSU-M made contact with her about expanding the program to not only Shelby, but all of Richland County and surrounding cities. OSU-M helped John with making contacts to other schools to continue the expansion. The program was going to incorporate male students into the mix. It was decided that female and male students would alternate years; either the student would go to the program as a 7th or 8th grader. The program’s name changed to LeaderRichland.
Now entering its second year, the program has seen clear progress and growth. In May 2013, there were over 500 children from Mansfield, Galion, and Shelby that took part in LeaderRichland. A number of speakers came to the event, one of which was State Representative Marc Romanchuk. Mayor John wanted local leaders speaking and to have low cost. John said, “We want to make sure we have low cost in order to keep schools involved.” One student made a connection with State Representative Romanchuk and scheduled a meeting with him to discuss an interest in venture capitalism.
The mayor believes that children have hope in their community, “In the beginning, one little boy started out very hopeless about Richland County and by the end he said he wanted to go to school here.” Mayor John wants to show that the opportunities are endless, “The kids are our future and we want to help them build strong leadership skills that they can carry with them.”