More than 80 students from around Sullivan County gathered for the second annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service Youth Summit on January 13 at the Hurleyville Performing Arts Centre.

Early in the morning at 9 a.m., students from numerous Sullivan County high schools, including Sullivan West, Livingston Manor, Roscoe, Fallsburg, Liberty, Eldred, Monticello, Youth Economic Group (YEG), and the Collaborative College High School of Hurleyville began to fill the auditorium.

Welcoming them to the Hurleyville Performing Arts Centre was Sullivan 180 Managing Director Amanda Langseder. 

Surrounding the tables where students took their seats alongside chaperones and activity leaders were tablecloths from the previous year. Written on them were drawings, scribbles, words and other inscriptions detailing their experiences of the Youth Summit. 

During the day’s activities, a similar process was followed where students left their marks and thoughts to be remembered for next year and more to follow.

Following Langseder was the MLK Day of Service keynote speaker, author and motivational speaker Duncan Kirkwood.

Army National Guard Master Resilience Trainer and author of “Rerouting: Resilience Tools and Tactics”, Kirkwood gave an interactive speech, telling the students of his story of learning to say “yes”.”

He spoke of taking advantage of every opportunity that was presented, no matter how insignificant it may haved seemed.

In his experience, Kirkwood said that one instance of him saying “no’’ led him to miss an opportunity where his friends from Alabama State University in Montgomery who said “yes” got the opportunity to pursue their education on the Virgin Islands, US, for an entire year – without him. He went on to say that he only missed out on the experience because he decided not to attend one single meeting.

“Some lessons you only have to learn once,” Kirkwood said. 

After that, Kirkwood became no stranger to the affirmative word of “yes.” The next interesting opportunity that was presented to him, he took it, and ended up meeting prominent figures like then Senator Barack Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton in Washington D.C. because of it.

Kirkwood went on to tell the students that as his college career continued, his attempts to step out of his comfort zone allowed him to “knock on the door of opportunity,” which was answered by various elected officials, people of interest, and landed him in various locations of note, including Washington D.C. and all around the nation.

Kirkwood said that you never know what seemingly insignificant opportunity might lead you to something unexpectedly amazing.

Before exiting the stage, the students joined Kirkwood in repeating aloud a resilience pledge. It goes as follows: “I will always place my mission first. I will never accept defeat. I will never quit.”

Kirkwood told the students to seek those opportunities, say “yes” to new things, and to be open minded. His three rules for living in a positively affirming way is to live with passion, perseverance, and purpose.

These tenets paired with those which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave in his “Blueprint for Life” speech in 1967. A screening of the speech was introduced to the students by Executive Director of the Sullivan County Human Rights Commission, Adrienne Jensen.

Those tenets shared by Dr. King are belief in oneself, determination to see your goals through to the end no matter what, and commitment to doing the right thing for your neighbor, your country, and yourself.

In his historic speech, Dr. King told students at a high school in Philadelphia, PA, to keep moving no matter what.

“If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward,” Dr. King famously said.

Jensen also invited the students to check out the new youth-led human rights initiative, called the Sullivan County Youth Action Council. Those with inquiries on this opportunity can contact Jensen at adrienne.jensen@sullivanny.us.