Over the summer, a participant of NorthStar 4-H Tanglewood's first cohort set out on a five-day beginner backpacking trip along the Appalachian Trail. When he came back, NorthStar Tanglewood's program coordinator Mel Torres noticed a shift.
“He came out of that with a spark that I had never seen in him before, and a deeper appreciation for the outdoors,” Torres said. “When we came back to school in the fall, it was all he could talk about.”
At the start of the school year, students complete a “who am I” activity. This particular student’s paper was filled with mountains and hiking.
Revelations like this are what NorthStar 4-H Tanglewood is built to create. A long-term mentoring program for youth in the Belfast area run by the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, NorthStar gives students unique and meaningful experiences alongside adults who stay with them over time.
In a rural community, students often have few outlets and limited ways to reach the ones that exist, so each new experience is a chance to find out what lights them up. Because their mentors are there when school starts again, the spark has somewhere to go: someone to tell about it, and someone to help them follow it.
Leadership Rooted in First-Hand Experience
Torres herself participated in the Tanglewood experience as a kid, from day camp all the way through its teen leadership programs. She credits the mentors there for much of who she became.
“I credit nearly all of my hard skills and most of my soft skills to what I learned in those programs and the mentors that I had here as a kid,” she said. “Adults that were willing to go on 10-day hiking trips with a bunch of teenagers were always the adults that taught me the most.”
After time away working in early childhood education, Torres returned to Tanglewood, serving first with AmeriCorps and now as NorthStar 4-H Tanglewood's program coordinator. She is the program's only full-time staff member, joined by an AmeriCorps member, and about 70% of her time goes to working directly with students, schools, and families.
“The Tanglewood community is what made me who I am,” she said. “It was super exciting to be able to not only work with kids in this way, but also give back to the Tanglewood program in this way.”
Tanglewood is one of four 4-H Camps and Learning Centers run by UMaine Cooperative Extension. The NorthStar model began at Bryant Pond, one of the original sites in the Aspirations Incubator's six-year pilot. The Tanglewood branch started as a 2023 AmeriCorps pilot with fifth graders at Captain Albert Stevens School and officially launched in the fall of 2024 with federal funding. Today, it works with students across the RSU 71 district.
Left: Students visit the Common Ground Fair and try some new foods.
Right: Students in the 6th grade at Troy Howard Middle School create a short film with Torchlight, a youth-media non-profit in Belfast, during 6th grade after school club.
The Power of Showing Up and Building Memories
NorthStar Tanglewood provides a wide variety of programming and experiences for youth participants. During the summer, the primary focus is getting kids to camp — a coveted childhood summer experience that’s completely free for NorthStar kids.
In addition to standard camp programming, core multi-day trips to places like Acadia National Park, Boston, and other New England stops expand participants’ worldviews.
During the school year, 5th grade students are exposed to the NorthStar 4-H community through outdoor education programming on a weekly-to-monthly basis. Topics include ecology, natural science, and the art of having fun outside.
“These lessons of outdoor education within 5th grade classes not only provide a space for kids to enjoy and understand nature more, but also give them the opportunity to learn about NorthStar as a program, especially the youth mentorship piece,” Torres said. “It also gives them a familiar face to see when they move into middle school — ideally this makes that big jump feel like it comes with more support.”
Once students make the leap from 5th grade to middle school, NorthStar programming shifts alongside them. Students participate in social, emotional and team building work three times a week through activities, conversations, games, and more. After the final bell rings, these conversations can continue through after-school programming like garden club, adventure club, and local volunteering opportunities.
Regardless of season, the underlying thread of informal relationship building is an essential part of the connections NorthStar 4-H Tanglewood helps grow.
“Informal relationship building is one of our main pillars with community building and school connections. It’s the pillar with the least amount of structure, but it often provides the most important moments for the kids we work with,” Torres said.
“For example, one kid needs plastic hair ties from Walgreens. So, I'm going to go pick her up after school today, and we're going to go get plastic hair ties at Walgreens and talk about life before I bring her home. These small moments of being supported, trusted, and seen allows them to realize the network of care that is here to uplift them.”
Real Life, Fewer Screens
Longer NorthStar trips are phone-free, and Torres has watched the same pattern play out each time. For the first hour in the van, students ask when they can have their phones back. By hour two, they are telling each other jokes while occasionally asking for their devices for music purposes. By the time the group reaches the campsite, they are asking where the frisbee is and when the hike starts. By the second night, some are skipping their 10 minutes of phone time altogether.
"So many of them vocalize that they wish their screen time was lower, but they feel like they don't have anything else to do," Torres said. "So many of them are already looking for those other positive outlets — you don't have to convince them to get off their phones once they're outside. That's already what they want."
Those observations connect to a conversation RYI has been part of since the landmark settlement with Meta. In a recent op-ed, RYI called for settlement resources to reach the places where young people live their lives, such as afterschool and summer programs, mentoring, and outdoor and experiential learning.
On the trail, in the van, and around a campfire, Torres sees what that looks like in practice.
Left: Students volunteer at the Belfast Soup Kitchen. 6th graders have their first volunteering experience there every year, rotating between dining room service, kitchen work and the community market.
Right: Students of Cohort 1 prepare breakfast for the group on our Acadia Trip in May of 2026
Becoming a Hub for Transformation
The outlets that students want are not always easy to reach. Torres names transportation as the biggest barrier facing rural youth in the Belfast area. Without a late bus, students who want to join a club or sport after school often cannot get there or get home, and programs like NorthStar 4-H Tanglewood can only do so much alone.
That is where the Aspirations Incubator network brings knowledge. A transportation challenge Torres is facing may have already been solved by another Aspirations Incubator partner in a different rural community. Through the relationships built across the network, Torres can tap into that shared experience and learn how they approached it.
“It has to be the right people in the right place at the right time to make a big change. We can make a lot of small changes, and we're way more powerful together than we are apart,” Torres said. “I'm so appreciative of the space that RYI and the Aspirations Incubator Network gives us.”
Looking ahead, Torres hopes NorthStar becomes the go-to hub for youth involvement in the Belfast community, a place that can provide transportation, permission slips, and snacks, listen to what students want, and connect them with it. She also hopes today's cohorts grow into peer mentors who carry NorthStar to the next generation.
“I think that's all I can ever hope for any of these kids, is that they finish their time with NorthStar and it's been an experience that they want to speak positively of,” Torres said. “That it's something that has filled their cup in some way.”
To learn more about NorthStar 4-H Tanglewood, visit Tanglewood’s website. To learn more about the Aspirations Incubator and RYI's partner network, visit aspirationsincubator.org.
