By Rusty Nixon Correspondent
BREMEN — The future of leadership in Marshall County is getting a BEAM of light.
The group of high school students from all over the county that compose the group Bettering Every Aspect of Marshall County (BEAM) are working to be sure that volunteerism and leadership continue from generation to generation. The group — that is a youth leadership program of the Marshall County Community Foundation — undertakes service projects around the county.

“I knew one of the residents here,” said Nathaniel O’Dell, of John Glenn High School, about the group’s recent project at The Whitlock in Bremen. “They were wanting to do a vegetable garden and I thought that would be a perfect service project for us.”
The group, with the help of Felke’s  Florists in Plymouth, who donated the plants for the residents’ garden, spent their day putting together the project.
BEAM is composed of high school students from around the county. On this particular day, Zach West, of Plymouth; T.J. Mechling, of Grace Baptist Christian School; Linda Cramer, of LaVille High School; Bryant Davenport, of Triton; and Kailyn Weiss, Shelby Dirrim and Shannon Sickelka, all of Bremen, have all joined O’Dell for this project.
Dirrim has good reason to be a proud member of the group.
“My sister joined a similar group when we lived in Steuben County,” she said. “When she came here, she wanted to be a part of something similar.”
“The group is actually based on the group that her sister was in,” said Sickelka.
Those in BEAM were “rounded up” by their school principals — but it wasn’t a very hard sell for the kids involved.
“You get a lot of satisfaction,” said Dirrim. “A lot of people think that teenagers can’t do anything, but this is a chance for us to step up and make a difference.”