Kimeta Dover works with the Mentoring Center of Central Ohio. She was recommended to Karen Dawson as an excellent trainer and Karen invited her to attend a LeaderSpark Facilitator Training in 2006. According to Kimeta, “I fell in love with the curriculum right away. It’s really awesome. I thought that it was a great, great, great course. I first worked as a small group facilitator during a LeaderSpark session for Southside Settlement. Now I have done about nine or ten sessions as a lead facilitator.”

When asked, why she continues being involved, Kimeta said: “The participants and seeing them grow. Generally, the course goes from 6 to 7 weeks and a lot times we’ll come in and there’s a participant that’s really shy, that maybe doesn’t really feel comfortable speaking before a group and then what we find is that, by the end of the session they are very comfortable. They do a wonderful job. I’ve had students that tell me they wouldn’t volunteer to do things at school before and now they’re raising their hands and volunteering. So I think that the real key is that what they are learning they can apply right away. It’s not something that they have to wait until later in life to use. They can apply it immediately, at school, at work, at home, whatever.”
Kimeta continued: “I think another thing is learning to work with groups. Sometimes this is the first experience that they’ve had with working with others. Another thing is learning to be a leader, a recorder and a time keeper. These are three key roles that, every time we meet in small groups, someone takes on each of these roles. So they have the opportunity to learn what it is like to be a leader; what is it like to be the recorder -- the person who is taking care of all of the notes, and someone who is making certain that everything stays on track.”

When asked whether Kimeta uses anything from the LeaderSpark curriculum in her work or personal life, she said: “I use everything from it. I think about it all the time, I think it particular making certain things are staying on time. The other thing I’m very aware of is making certain that I’m observing leadership styles and making sure that the leadership style that I’m using is the effective one for the task. By now I’m more aware of the fact that there are different leadership styles and they can apply to different situations. So I would say everything that I’ve learned in LeaderSpark I use. As a facilitator, I have to say, even doing this nine or ten times, I am still learning along with the participants. That’s the great things about the curriculum, I’m learning along with them and I apply everything that I learn. “