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NSS Life (National Slovak Society of the USA) presented its Youth Achievement Award to Ashlynn Mason, a 16-year-old student at West Branch High School.
NSS Life selects one outstanding youth member to receive the Youth Achievement Award. Youth from across the nation are nominated with one being selected for the award each year. The award is based on the student's academics, community activities, church participation, leadership skills and NSS involvement.
Ashlynn plans to continue her education beyond high school for a career in the medical field. She is a member of the school's FFA club where she enjoys learning about agriculture.
As a 4-H member, Ashlynn breeds and raises rabbits she shows during Mahoning County's Canfield Fair. She completed Quality Assurance training this year to be eligible to raise meat pen rabbits. She has also completed 4-H small projects that qualified her for competition at the Ohio State Fair for three consecutive years. She served as secretary for her 4-H Club before being elected as its president. This year she was elected president of a newly formed club, The Rowdy Roosters. Her leadership skills will certainly be a benefit to the new club as she strives to make meetings fun and beneficial for all the youth members.
She attended the 2024 Ohio 4-H Conference designed to bring together 4-H volunteers and teens from across Ohio to learn from one another and to improve their 4-H abilities. She attended 4-H camp for the past several years. She's looking forward to becoming a counselor at Camp Whitewood and share her camping experience with the younger campers. 4-H and FFA have led the way for Ashlynn to be chosen to serve on the County's Junior Fair Board where she helps to ensure projects and events are coordinated and everything runs smoothly for the Junior Fair participants.
Recently, Ashlynn joined the workforce with a part-time job at the Salem Dairy Queen. This working experience will certainly help her continue her future journey on the right road to become a responsible adult.
She has been a member of NSS since birth and attended her first NSS convention in 2010 when she was 3 years old. Since that time, she has participated in the youth program at the 2014, 2018, and 2022 conventions. She has grown up attending Assembly 731 events and is now serving the assembly as a Youth Fraternal coordinator, assisting the adults with planning activities that today's youth will enjoy. She has volunteered many hours working alongside adult members at various community work projects. For several years she participated in the NSS Bowling Tournament for youth and entered NSS contests. She has attended activities sponsored by NSS Region 5. Not only are her immediate family NSS members, Ashlynn comes from a large family including grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins who are active members of NSS.
In February of this year, Ashlynn attended the Young Christian Leaders Retreat at Malone University. The retreat was an opportunity for high school students to engage in spiritual formation and fellowship, and to focus on leadership through caring for one another.
Ashlynn is consistently willing participant in the Gate Student Ministries at the Salem First Friends Church. She is willing to help in whatever capacity is needed, whether it is helping clean up the kitchen or helping care and teach a younger group of students.
In 2023 and 2024, Ashlynn traveled with a small group of teens to St. Christine School in Youngstown to celebrate Right to Read Week with elementary school children. She enjoyed reading to the children and participating in activities related to reading with them.
In 2023, Ashlynn was part of a group that visited Clothed in Righteousness, a non-profit homeless care facility in Alliance. They took a tour of the facility to see how they could assist those in our area in need of shelter, clothes, food and other personal necessities. She helped make hygiene kits that were handed out to those in need. The group made cards for those coming in and out of the facility and Ashlynn was thoughtful and creative in making her cards meaningful. Ashlynn was one of the first to help assemble warming bags for the facility. Her desire to serve others is always done with efficiency and energy.
In the summer of 2023, Ashlynn traveled to Chicago with a small group from Gate Student Ministry to assist a Spanish-speaking sister church where she helped coordinate and run a Vacation Bible School. Ashlynn could be counted on to lead a small group of kids through learning, game, and craft time. She was put in different circumstances with various leaders from the group and the sister church and in each one she thrived and served with humility and curiosity.
This summer Ashlynn joined other students on a trip to Rough Rock, Arizona, an isolated area on the Navajo Reservation. They led a sports camp and worked on projects such as painting, fence building and other projects to assist families and groups within the community.
Ashlynn is a kind, responsible and flourishing young lady. She asks great questions, provides helpful insights and seeks to grow her faith so that it impacts her life and the lives around her.
Ashlynn is the daughter of Beth and Matt Mason of Salem. She has two younger brothers, Cameron and Logan, who adore her. She has responsibilities at home that includes helping with the care of her brothers.