Western Wayne junior Ashton Fitzsimmons graduated from the Tomorrow’s Leaders Today 2020-2021 program this past May. He was one of several local students who had this experience. Ashton feels grateful for the opportunity he had through Leadership Lackawanna’s Tomorrow’s Leaders Today.
“My experience with Leadership Lackawanna was very interesting. Normally everything is in person, you get to visit all these different places and do all these activities with people from all around; however, because of COVID everything was virtual,” Ashton explained. “Although that is a big curveball in the program, it did not stop the fun even a little bit. Everyone was able to participate and make new friends with a lot of people while learning what it takes to be a leader. In my opinion, the experiments we would do was the best part of each session. For example, the members learned how to make a self-drawing machine with some wires, a battery, foam and colored pencils, and you got to draw different pictures and show everyone in the Zoom meet.”
Ashton has been highly involved in high school activities. He is a member of the varsity soccer and basketball teams, along with Future Business Leaders of America, National Honor Society, Tomorrow’s Leaders Today, and the Youth Advisory Committee. Notably for soccer, he is on the First Team All-Star Roster. In FBLA, he placed 1st at States his freshman year, and 4th at States last year. He especially enjoyed going to Hershey with FBLA and spending time with his friends in the club.
After high school, Ashton plans to attend West Chester University and earn his teaching degree.
“Western Wayne has prepared me for my plans after high school in many ways. The school offers so many opportunities with clubs inside and outside of school that give different outlooks on how the real world works,” Ashton explained. “ These opportunities not only prepare me for the future, but they also better me as a person. TLT is the perfect example. Currently, we are helping out different nonprofit organizations like Keystone Mission, which is a homeless shelter around Wilkes-Barre and Scranton.”
