Operation Snowball is officially coming to Prospect High School on March 2. While much of the day’s details remain to be disclosed, Operation Snowball is a one-day retreat designed to spread positivity throughout the school according to Counselor Tim Franklin.
“It’s hard to explain unless you actually do it, but essentially it is an opportunity for students to lead a retreat that builds on school culture and community, sense of belonging, empathy, leadership and just fun …” Franklin said.
Although Prospect is making the operation’s debut this winter, other schools like Fremd have been doing this tradition for a long time. Franklin explained that he’s been wanting to launch the idea at Prospect for a while after hearing about it from other schools. So, he met with Math teacher, Karen Kanupke, whose daughter was involved with Operation Snowball at Fremd, and joined forces with Post-Secondary counselor Colleen Carroll to help form the idea here at Prospect.
Their next step in the plan, which occurred last school year, was meeting with the Fremd leaders of Operation Snowball: the adult director and the student directors of the retreat to talk about what Operation Snowball is and how the process works.
According to Franklin, he noticed lots of buzz surrounding the experience the Fremd students felt.
“It was just really encouraging to see a group of students have that resource at school and that opportunity that really just brought out a lot of excitement in them. And, we were like yeah this is the perfect thing we can have here at Prospect to really expand on school culture and sense of belonging and respect,” Franklin said.
As to what the retreat entails, Franklin explained that they’re still figuring out the day’s agenda, but he did say that some “really good entertainment,” like guest speakers will make an appearance during the day.
Besides the speakers, many of Prospect’s own students will be running the retreat. About 20 leaders, who are either juniors or seniors, will be selected out of the pool of applications submitted to help plan the activities and facilitate the fun. The applications for small-group leaders are due this Friday, September 8th at 11:59 PM.
Co-Director of Prospect’s Operation Snowball, senior Brooke Ipsen, believes that leaders can be a significant part of Prospect’s legacy.
“I think someone should apply to be a leader, because I think that especially with how successful it’s been at Fremd, it’s going to be something that can hopefully become really successful here. So, just to be a part of something for the first year here I think would be really cool. I think it’s a great leadership position to meet new people and just get involved with something and try and help to make a difference at Prospect.”
Franklin says he’s looking for any leaders who are outgoing and willing to put in the time to be involved in the retreat. He hopes that around 100 people can be involved in the retreat, including students, staff and leaders alike.
Unfortunately, not everybody who applies to be a leader may get accepted to direct the retreat. However, Franklin believes that shouldn’t stop aspiring leaders from attending Operation Snowball anyway.
“Even if you’re not selected this round as a leader, please consider coming to the retreat because it is life-changing and it’s a great opportunity, and everybody who goes through snowball they have nothing but positive things to say about it,” Franklin said.
