During the course of the school year, junior Emily Bull participates in a youth group through her temple. She is actively serving on her group’s board as a social action vice president. Her job is to organize charity events and programs about social action awareness as well as how to stay involved within the community.

The group that Bull works with is known as the Northern Virginia Temple Youth group or NoVTY. Its goal is to provide teenagers in the Jewish community with activities to get together outside of religious school. Events are organized for 9-12 graders which can include religious activities, ice skating, laser tagging, a formal, and a group sleepover.

“In a youth group, kids are given an opportunity to be in a safe environment and meet new people within the community,” Bull said. “Within my temple youth group, there are six people on the board and around 10-20 members.”

Along with her involvement within NoVTY, Bull was chosen to chair a regional event with the help of one her fellow group members as well as the regional board.

“In the beginning of the year, I helped plan a regional event for around 200 people with the help of the regional board,” Bull said. “NISTY, which is the regional board, consists of about 200-400 people.”

The regional board is divided into four sub regions that are split by location around the Metropolitan district. Sub regions include the North, South, East, and West. North segment is Baltimore and upper Maryland, East segment is Chevy Chase areas and parts of DC, West segment is Reston and Mclean, and South segment is southern Virginia and North Carolina.

Bull’s group has events scheduled every month and the next event is set for Feb. 28 as a group sleepover. Regional events mostly occur every other month.

“We are hosting the regional sleepover for our sub region,” Bull said. “There is also a regional event coming up at the end of March which revolves around social action. Each sub region competes against each other in a color war.”

During the summer, Bull also participated in a leadership camp called Kutts. It was a camp dedicated to provide students with new leadership abilities and skills.

“We worked with autistic kids, we could song lead, and studied the Torah,” Bull said. “I feel like the camp helped me grow as a person as well as learn skills not only to apply to my youth group but also my daily life. It also helped me improve my communication skills with others. It was a lot of fun.”