Destination Imagination Virginia Helps Students Build Skills Through STEAM Challenges

Destination Imagination Virginia (DIVA) is transforming how young people across the Commonwealth learn, collaborate, and grow. Through its flagship Team Challenge program, DIVA engages students from kindergarten through college in hands-on, project-based challenges that build critical thinking, creativity, and confidence. Students form teams, solve STEAM challenges, and present their solutions at live tournaments—experiences that develop not just academic skills, but also executive functioning, teamwork, and perseverance.

We were proud to support Destination Imagination Virginia with a Kars4Kids small grant, helping to ensure more students—including those from underserved communities—have access to these life-changing opportunities. DIVA stood out to us for its unique, student-driven challenge model and its vibrant, volunteer-powered infrastructure. We put questions to Destination Imagination Virginia Affiliate Director Jenny Sessoms to learn more about this work.

Kars4Kids: Who are the students you serve—what ages are they, what communities do they come from, and what challenges in their backgrounds make mentoring so important?

Jenny Sessoms: Destination Imagination Virginia serves all kids, from kindergarten through college, throughout the commonwealth. Team members do not have to be affiliated with a school in order to participate in our program. Anyone from public school, private school, homeschool, and any combination of these can be a member of a Destination Imagination team. All students benefit from DI because the Challenge program instills lifelong skills like critical thinking, time management, creativity, poise and public speaking skills. With this grant, we will offer financial assistance to teams in need so more students can benefit from the STEAM skills, but also the executive skills that come from being on a DI team.

Kars4Kids: What is the main program of Destination Imagination Virginia, and how does it work for students from start to finish?

Jenny Sessoms: The Challenge Experience is our flagship program. Teams develop solutions to project-based STEAM challenges and then present their solutions at a tournament. Teams begin forming in the fall and meet once per week for an hour to an hour and a half. The team creates the solution to the challenge without outside help from parents, friends or siblings. For most of the challenges, the team will write a script, create costumes and scenery and present their solution in an 8-minute performance in front of a live audience. One of our challenges is an Improv Challenge. The team members research various characters, places and scenarios but will not know the exact prompts until two minutes before their performance. The Virginia Affiliate tournament is in March in Mechanicsville, Virginia. If a team places first or second in their challenge, they have the opportunity to advance to the Global Tournament in May in Kansas City, MO. Global Finals is like the STEAM Olympics! Teams from across the globe come together to compete and showcase their challenge solution.

Kars4Kids: Destination Imagination Virginia is fully volunteer-led and supports teams through training and a statewide tournament. How does that process work, and who’s involved in making it all happen?

Jenny Sessoms: Destination Imagination Virginia is 100% volunteer-led. All of our board members and committee members are volunteers. All of the appraisers at our tournaments are volunteers. Everyone associated with Destination Imagination volunteers our time because we love this program and see the positive, life-long benefits it brings to the team members.

The board members work year-round to ensure teams have a fun, positive experience. The DIVA Director and Vice President speak directly with school administrators, prospective team managers, teachers, homeschool parents and anyone interested in starting a team. We share our personal experiences as a team manager or being a team member because our first-hand perspective is very impactful to someone learning about DI for the first time.

We ask community members to partner with us for events like Instant Challenge Boot Camp and the Affiliate Tournament. For example, a local theater company offers an Improv Workshop to teams at the tournament. These skills assist the team members in having confidence during their Team Challenge performance, having a positive stage presence and improves their public speaking skills.

DI Alumni are integral members of the DI community. Anyone who has participated on a DI team for at least one year and is at least 18 years of age is invited to return as a volunteer in order to continue giving back to the DI community. Alumni participate in many ways, like on the executive board, as a team manager to their own children, and by being an appraiser at the Affiliate Tournament. You will know someone is a DI Alumni because they wear a special red satin tie to all of our events.

Kars4Kids: How do students and teams benefit from participating in DI—especially when it comes to building confidence, skills, and those powerful moments that come from leading their own projects?

Jenny Sessoms: There is no program quite like Destination Imagination. This uniqueness is why parents, students and schools of all types seek us out. The solving of the challenges is 100% team driven. The team succeeds on their own, and sometimes, have failures that they own and improve upon. We want team members to learn what works with their solution and more importantly, what didn’t work and why. When they figure out the “why,” then they are able to collaborate and find an improved solution that is likely even better than the first. Team members will learn new skills, like woodworking, painting and stenciling, learning to utilize many different art mediums and maybe even learning to sew. The team writes the script to their eight-minute performance, so they are learning creative writing, writing dialogue, creating interesting characters and creating plot development. The team manager is at every team meeting to guide the team, keeping them on track and making sure they are following the parameters of the challenge. The most powerful moment is when the team is on stage, performing and showing the audience their innovative solution to the Team Challenge. The amazing feeling of accomplishment is what brings the teams back year after year.

Kars4Kids: The challenges don’t always go as planned. How do students handle setbacks, and what do they learn from working through those tough moments?

Jenny Sessoms: Sometimes the best way to learn is from failure. You won’t know if a solution works until you give it a try. Destination Imagination is all about allowing the team members to try their unique solutions in order to find the most creative result. Teams are rewarded points at the tournament for creativity. As parents and team managers, we have to allow the team to try their ideas, possibly fail and to then try again. Team members learn perseverance and determination and they will then collaborate to find a new and improved solution. At DI, we do not want parents and team managers stepping in to help fix a solution. Rather, this is regarded as interference. We know that the team is completely capable of creating a solution on their own.

Kars4Kids: DIVA is run entirely by volunteers—what energizes people to give their time, and how do you keep that energy going year after year?

Jenny Sessoms: We have volunteers that have been with DIVA for more than 20 years! Their kids participated on a team, they were the team manager and they have returned to be a board member or appraiser at our Affiliate Tournament. Once you see the amazing creativity and talent from the teams’ solutions, you are energized and motivated to return year after year. You can’t wait to see what solutions teams have created for the new season’s challenges. You can also see firsthand the growth of the team participants as they, too, return year after year. There is no other program quite like DI!

Kars4Kids: What kind of training or preparation do Team Managers and volunteers go through before engaging with teams?

Jenny Sessoms: Anyone who is 18 years of age or older can be a team manager. You do not require any special skills to lead a team – just a little time in your schedule and you should be prepared to have fun!

We do require all team managers to have a background check before meeting with their team. Team managers receive online materials with their team registration that will walk them through the season week-by-week. Here in Virginia, we also offer team manager training, a team manager mentor program and challenge-specific training during the season. We assure that all team managers are equipped with the skills and materials they need to be successful for this season and every season.

Kars4Kids: What inspired you personally to become Affiliate Director, and how has your experience shaped the way you lead DIVA?

Jenny Sessoms: My “career” with Destination Imagination began when my oldest son was in first grade. I went to my first PTA meeting, where a brochure for DI was on the table. As soon as I read about a STEAM program where kids were on a team creating solutions to intriguing challenges, I knew that was for my son! I volunteered to be his team manager and his team continued to participate until they were seniors and graduated high school. The team now returns to volunteer at our various events and the Affiliate Tournament as challenge appraisers.

Next, I became the director of the Tidewater Region. This area encompasses Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Chesapeake, Suffolk, Newport News and Williamsburg. I had many ideas to add events and to grow the affiliate and include more schools and homeschool programs.

Then, after many years, the affiliate director was retiring from DI. I felt it was a natural progression for me to step into that role and to continue the progress I had begun in building the program. As a parent and team manager, I am able to bring that firsthand experience to my role as the director. I understand what it is like to manage kids as young as kindergarten and as old as seniors in high school. I am able to give advice and helpful suggestions to anyone wanting to start a program at their school, their homeschool co-op or simply start their own team. We have created our training and mentorship programs based on our own experiences and the experiences of the team managers and coordinators we interact with every single day.

Kars4Kids: How have you seen DIVA evolve over time, and how have student needs or participation patterns changed?

Jenny Sessoms: Destination Imagination Virginia used to have over 300 teams every year, without ever having to do any marketing. After the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020-2021, it was devastating to see the number of teams decrease by more than half. Schools were afraid to have kids stay after school for activities so we started helping teams find places like the public library or rec centers to hold their meetings. We have started connecting directly with the homeschool community and have helped them create their own programs with family members, neighbors and members of their co-ops. We are now seeing 20% growth year-over-year due to our continued outreach to public, private, and homeschools throughout the Virginia Commonwealth. Parents and students are seeking out more STEAM programs and connect with us every week. We at Destination Imagination Virginia want to see schools expand and include STEAM activities for their students once again.

Kars4Kids: What’s next for Destination Imagination Virginia—what do you hope to build or change in the coming years?

Jenny Sessoms: We want to continue to grow the Team Challenge program every season. Teams of all ages have so much fun solving our challenges and we want more kids to have these incredible experiences. We want to reach more students in lower socio-economic situations. We will use our Kars4Kids grant to identify communities in need and reach out to their student population so they can be part of our DI experience. We never want to turn away a team due to funding. We have created a financial assistance fund to continue this mission for seasons into the future.

Thank you Kars4Kids!