The group gathers for a flag ceremony at the You R You retreat in 2025. Photos: United Way Washington County-East
A one-day retreat empowers girls before they start middle school.
Returning to school after summer break is never easy, and the transition from elementary to middle school brings even more to navigate. The You R You retreat, hosted by United Way Washington County-East (UWWCE) at Hidden Pines Ranch in Stillwater, is designed to catch girls at this crossroads.
“We landed on sixth grade because it’s a year of transition, and that can be really tough,” says Kristin Kroll, executive director of UWWCE. The organization saw a clear pattern emerging in county-wide student surveys and area healthcare reporting: Young girls are struggling. “We wanted to go upstream,” Kroll says. “How can we get ahead of the anxiety and social pressures? How can we make a difference before a crisis hits?”
The answer emerged in the form of a targeted one-day retreat. The event features expert-led sessions on topics relevant to this age group, along with classic summer camp activities like friendship bracelet making and yoga. “From the beginning, we knew it would be important to bring in professionally trained partners,” Kroll says. Representatives from area nonprofits, including FamilyMeans and Tubman, cover three core areas: body positivity, healthy relationships and overcoming challenges.
The commitment to high-quality programming means the girls in attendance leave with practical tools that are immediately useful. At the inaugural You R You retreat in August 2024, a Tubman session on healthy relationships, with “red flag” and “green flag” exercises, offered specific examples of what is healthy and what isn’t—an important framework for navigating the new complexities of middle school social circles.
Attendees enjoy expert-led sessions and classic summer camp activities.
In a session about coping with anxiety, a mental health specialist from FamilyMeans encouraged girls to try sucking on a piece of sour candy to help reduce anxiety. “I never knew that!” Kroll says. “They’re learning all these tools that, hopefully, help them feel more confident and empowered as they head back to school.”
The retreat is a collaborative effort with UWWCE’s Women United, and around 50 volunteers of all ages come to support 80–100 attendees. Amelia Kozlowski, a co-leader of UWWCE’s Youth United and a rising senior at Stillwater Area High School, served as a peer guide during the retreat. She especially appreciated the body positivity session with The Emily Program, which covered myths about food and weight. “It was just really, I think, shifting a lot of perspectives … [and] preventing these kids from building harmful perspectives when they get to middle school and get exposed to those things,” Amelia says.
Connecting older girls with the younger girls creates an immediate bridge. The high schoolers can share stories—not knowing where the band room was or forgetting their locker combination—which validates the younger girls’ feelings and reminds them they aren’t alone.
The mentorship benefits the older girls too. “It reinforces the value of being part of something larger than themselves,” Kroll says. “Supporting [the attendees’] mental health, their confidence and their ability to say, ‘Yes, it’s new. Yes, it’s different, but I can do it,’ is a really special thing.”
United Way Washington County-East
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