The word snowball brings forth images of a small, circular icy ball, but when LT students hear it, they think of the weekend retreat that comes around twice a year. They learn about social issues and themselves, and the fall retreat is almost here.  

Snowball is a weekend retreat to Camp Mclean on the first weekend of November. Around 225-250 students attend snowball each season by raffle, and get to participate in a wide variety of group activities, listen to speakers, and engage in group bonding.

“There are a lot of large group sessions, but over the weekend you also have small groups that you stick with the whole time,” Snowball Director David Stormont said. “Snowball is about finding yourself and helping each other on the journey through high school. I love seeing the new people come in to Snowball. There is so much growth over a single weekend. The cliché of overnight change actually happens at Snowball, and it’s great to see.” 

In the past, the Snowball community has had multiple speakers come and talk to students about issues relevant to the teen society, but this year is different. Instead of having speakers come, the directors of snowball are hoping to have a student panel in addition to speakers to help the students understand the actual damage of the topics talked about. 

“We’ve already had speakers come every year and we decided to try something new this year,” Stormont said.

While the leaders of snowball are working on the student panel, the staff are focused on new activities.

There are two types of student leaders, staff and theater. The staff leads group discussion, while the theater works on creating skits about typical teen pressures, LT theatre member Malachy Collins ’17 said.

The student leaders work to get the kids in the small groups to know each other better, and help get to know themselves better as well.

“Snowball is an amazing experience because it creates this positive energy that is brought back to LT after the weekend is over,” Collins said. “You get to share it with the people you never thought you could be friends with and that’s why Snowball is so great.”