Off screen, I knew only one openly gay person and have only one memory I’ve kept of him. My cousin Joel died of AIDS when I was 10, and when I think of him, I remember my family gathered around a table making a quilt square to commemorate his life.

Joel’s panel is one of 50,000 that make up the AIDS Memorial Quilt, but sometimes I imagine a different reality. One where Joel’s phone number is saved in my favorites, where I get to hear his coming out experience, and where I tell him mine.

This isn’t that story, but it is one that has stayed with me.

At 18, I was struggling to embrace my own sexuality and was sitting in a restaurant with my role model and mentor getting ready to tell him about it. Jim was the consistent, caring adult outside of my family I knew I could count on. He offered me my first job in the afterschool program he ran and inspired my love of this profession.

I tried to muster up the courage to share my struggles with him, but none surfaced. I began asking him “Would you rather?” questions as a segue, but one of Jim’s answers snuffed out the sentence I spent so much time crafting. “Nothing would be worse than your kid being gay?”

Did I hear correctly? Yes. I. Did. In that moment, I lost more than words.

Imagine you have a balloon. Each time you say something encouraging to a young person, each time you acknowledge their potential, you are putting a little more air in the balloon, one breath at a time. Jim spent years slowly filling my balloon and in one moment, in one sentence, it burst. What words and actions do you fill into the balloons of each young person in your program every day? And what words and actions might be the pin that pops them, intentionally or unintentionally?

What keeps me in afterschool - at Camp Fire and as a proud board member of the National Afterschool Association - is the opportunity to create communities where young people feel fully seen with a sense of connection to their peers and to adults.

This magic doesn’t just appear; it’s carefully crafted through the actions and words of the professionals in this space.

I don’t think Jim remembers what he said that day. And I have never given him the grace and benefit to know why we never spoke again. We have both gone on -- living our separate lives -- with only me carrying the weight of his words for all these years.

Think of a young person in your life… a young person trying to be deeply, vulnerably, and fully seen by you. Think of the air you have tirelessly put into their balloon. And as you return home, watch for that pin, in your words and actions. Listen carefully and breathe deeply. By doing so, you will be affirming their existence and contribution to the world.

Contributed by NAA Board Member and Camp Fire Chief Strategy Officer Shawna Rosenzweig. As seen in the Spring 2023 edition of AfterSchool Today.