JUGHEADS
Youth Juggling Company, LLC
5905 Concord Avenue
Edina, MN 55424
jugheads@comcast.net
or 952.926.0896

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Summer 2007

“Words of Affirmation”

The riskiest and most overall painstaking "act" of Juggle Jam each year is, without a doubt, the annual Slide Show. Not only does this require the Jugheads giving up part of their rehearsal time in March for individual and group photos, led by Wendy and parent volunteers (in this year's case, Tim Boatman, Scott Harr, Linda King, and Holly Levy, plus former JH parent Steve Rice at our final dress rehearsal), but Wendy then spends time "cleaning up" photos and arranging them, along with 53 candid shots (many with captions) chosen from among hundreds taken over the last year, and finally deciding on inspirational and meaningful music as our soundtrack for the 15- or 16-minute presentation. Then, I begin plugging in "awards" for each Jughead. This year, I didn't begin to process of writing awards until April 28, just days after I announced the Rudy Award winner (Juliana), mainly because I want my ideas to be as fresh and applicable as possible on the nights of Juggle Jam.

Any time I wane in my belief in the effectiveness of efforts to affirm youth in words and honoring attention, I need only recall how much I am empowered at age 38 by words of affirmation from parents regarding JJ9 and JH in general. Perhaps some parts of the business world need, by necessity, to focus only on the bottom line; some sports teams only look at stats; some social groups only look at appearances. One of the beautiful things about this youth company is that no one Jughead's (or even adult's) experience can be summarized or quantified with achivements or stats. Even with our increasing standards and goals, JH exists to encourage youth to be human beings rather than merely human doings. That's affirmative.