Three-hundred middle and high school students turned out to the Kent Commons on Dec. 16 for the 26th annual Game of Life event sponsored by the Kent Police Department and the department’s Youth Board.
At the beginning of the day, students divided into five different groups and then attended three seminars focusing on a variety of topics that teens deal with in school.
John Pagel and Officer Donovan Dexheimer ran through a seminar on distracted driving while writer Luis Ortega taught a life skills seminar. Other classes included binge drinking and addiction prevention, healthy relationships and nutrition and exercise.
“We take the problems we see in school and try to find ways to help our classmates handle them better,” said Youth Board member Dahnica Delapaz.
One of the important things for this year, said fellow member Manuel Marroquin, was making sure that the lessons and seminars stuck with the students after the day was over.
“Last year they just left, and it went back to normal,” Morroquin said.
To try and prevent that this year, the students implemented a leadership and relationships seminar to teach students about respect and relationships, with the underlying theme that a person doesn’t need to like someone to care about them and have compassion for them.
“Everybody should walk out thinking, ‘How can I make a difference in the community,” said Morroquin.
Jake Chaves, a Kentlake sophomore, said that the leadership course helped him most, specifically in how it dealt with different types of love.
“Before I didn’t think the word has as big of an impact,” Chaves said.
The utility of each lesson varied from student to student.
Lexi Ford, a Kentlake sophomore, said that the day grew on her.
“I signed up for it as a day to miss school, but as I got into it, it was more useful,” she said.
Cali Smail, a Kentwood freshman, said that much of the content was “everything we already had known.”
At the same time, Smail and Ford agreed that the relationships exercises were useful for helping them understand respect and compassion.
“You don’t have to like someone to respect them.”
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