Little did Sam Antes know that an innocent walk through the Slep Student Center in the fall of his sophomore year at Penn State Altoona would change his life.
Antes (L) with Jay Paterno
Antes (R) with Tom Baker, Leadership for Life facilitator
By Shari R. Routch
Always an involved student in high school, Antes was having trouble finding the student group at Penn State Altoona that fit with who he was and what he wanted to do. “I was involved in a couple of organizations and enjoyed my time, but none of them was ‘it.’ I’m not sure how to describe it, but I still walked around campus feeling like ‘I’m not sure I belong here.’”
And then he saw a flyer for Leadership for Life, a selective semester-long leadership program for Altoona students, sitting on a table in Slep. Having been involved in leadership roles and organizations in high school, Antes was immediately intrigued. “So I filled out the application and sent it in. Turns out, it was the best thing I ever did.”
“During the first session, the facilitator asked the class, ‘Why are you doing this? Why are you here?’ And I really didn’t have a better answer than that I needed to get motivated,” recalls Antes. And as he went through the program, he found that motivation, along with a desire to make a difference in his hometown.
Home for Antes is Troy, Pennsylvania, a small borough in the northern part of the Commonwealth with 1,354 citizens, according to the 2010 U.S. Census. As a small community, Antes thought there was a way he could get involved and bring people together. So he came up with the concept of a summer speaker series. “My idea was just to make some type of event to get people out and active, bring the community together, and have motivational and inspirational speakers present their ideas,” states Antes. “I also thought we could do it as a fundraiser for other organizations in our community. At the time, our food bank was about to close. Our area is very dependent on the food bank, so I wanted to raise money to keep it open.”
That first summer, Antes was able to form a committee of five, who brought in three speakers for the inaugural Summer Speaker Series. The events were held in the high school auditorium, donated for free. Antes’ goal was to get Jay Paterno as the first speaker. “I sent Jay an email and he responded ‘absolutely.’ “It was like a dream come true.” Although Antes had hoped to fill the 900-seat auditorium, with a town population under 1,500, that might have been an unrealistic goal. They ended up with 150 attendees and, constituting over 10 percent of their population, could consider the event a success.
They rounded out the summer with two more speakers—Mary Beth Kennedy, whose presentation was based on letters that her father wrote in World War Two, and Billy Staples, a popular author and educator who works with inner city kids in New York—and succeeded in raising money for the food bank.
Antes learned a lot from that first summer, and set out to make improvements for the next. “I learned that we needed a lot more time to prepare. We had started working in April with our first event planned for June,” states Antes. “I also learned a lot about staying organized, how to run meetings, and finding a balance. I was working on this while still trying to balance being a college student and having other responsibilities during the school year and in the summer.”
So, for year two, Antes made the working committee bigger and delegated responsibilities to subcommittees, such as advertising and finance. But a bigger issue loomed in his mind—would he even be returning home for the summer, as he was also seeking out internships to advance his career goals.
“I really wanted to return home, but I didn’t want to turn down a great internship opportunity,” says Antes. “So we had a meeting where we asked, ‘Are we going to continue? Is this going to last?’ And happily we decided that, regardless of whether I came back, the committee that I formed was going to try to continue. They believed enough in my idea to be committed to it and make it grow. To me, that was awesome.”
Fortuitously, Antes was able to find an internship in his field at home for the summer that allowed him to spend nights and weekends working on the speaker series. That summer they brought in two speakers and also solicited donations to start a community grant program, for which area organizations can apply to enhance the local community.
Summer 2015 was, according to Antes, very interesting and filled with many different challenges. He passed up some professional opportunities to continue to be an active part of the Speaker Series. “The series really took off this summer in an exciting direction,” says Antes. “The first event was called the Community Leaders Celebration to honor people within our own community of Troy. We honored three different individuals and I spoke at this event about the importance of being involved with your community, and how it benefits both the community and yourself.” The second event featured Mike Stevens, a popular on-air personality from WNEP-TV in Scranton, Pennsylvania, who entertained with stories from his thirty-plus year career of traveling around the Commonwealth and filming his popular show “On the Pennsylvania Road.”
The last event was very meaningful for Antes, as it featured LFL facilitator Tom Baker. “Having Tom as part of the series meant a lot to me, as he has been such a big influence in my life. Things seemed to come full circle for me at that event.”
Having graduated in December 2015 with a degree in landscape contracting from the University Park campus, Antes now works as an account manager with Anewalt’s Landscape Contracting, located just outside of Reading, Pennsylvania. Says Antes, “I’m going out on a limb with this one to an area where I have no family and don’t really have any connections at this point, but I am really excited about the opportunity to move to a new place and meet many new people.”
Following its third summer, Antes feels the series is in a positive position. “I am very lucky to have worked with great people who believed in me and blessed to come from a community that is so supportive,” says Antes. But, given his move away from home, Antes can no longer be as involved in planning the series. Luckily, the committee has shown interest in continuing the series for the future. Says Antes, “I know they will do even greater things going forward. I can definitely call my crazy idea a success!”
Antes attributes the key to starting a successful community organization, while still a college student, to the Penn State Altoona Leadership for Life program, as well as a clear vision. “I figured if I wanted to have a successful organization, I needed to figure out what we would stand for. Obviously, we are an organization that is going to help the community. But what is behind that; what do we stand for,” says Antes. “At the time, I was reading a book about [UCLA basketball coach] John Wooden and his ‘pyramid of success.’ So I decided to build my own pyramid.”
“I looked at myself and what I wanted to do for my community and came up with four parts of my pyramid: passion; enthusiasm; loyalty; and love. I brought this to my committee and they loved it,” says Antes. “I feel like whenever we try to apply these four things to our events for the community, they are much better. I try to apply these four things in my life as well. I’ve seen it with my organization and myself—when you are applying these four things, it’s great! That’s something I would challenge people to come up with for themselves. Your building blocks may be different from mine, but my challenge to you is to find something you want to embrace and go for it.”
For more information about the Summer Speaker Series, visit www.thesummerspeakerseries.com online.
