Youth take lead in civic group

Last Thursday’s committee meeting of the Youth Sustainability Council opened with a lively discussion of what to do in case of a widespread zombie attack.

“I’d go to Costco with a small army and hold out there until the National Guard arrived,” said 17-year-old William Breckenridge, a junior at Lewis and Clark High School.

While the council may be unconventional in how it conducts business, its plans to take on real-life community issues are no idle fantasy.

Nearly a year ago a youth exchange program was organized by Community-Minded Enterprises, a Spokane nonprofit that aims to foster innovation at the community level. Over several weeks, a youth delegation from Ecuador met with a group of 15 local teenagers to learn jointly about civic participation. The groups each came up with an idea to improve their community, which spawned the Youth Sustainability Council and, through it, a project called Gathering Places.

One of those involved in the group was 19-year-old Taylor Weech, who subsequently landed a job as the go-between for Community-Minded Enterprises and the newly formed Youth Sustainability Council. Weech said the group has grown to about 20 teens, mostly sophomores and juniors from mid-city high schools such as Lewis and Clark, Ferris and North Central, although it is trying to recruit people of various ages from a wider area.

“I think a lot of young people are just waiting to be asked to get involved,” Weech said. “A lot of times youth involvement is prescribed or institutionalized, and with this group all the ideas come from us. We have some financial support through (Community-Minded Enterprises), but we’re in the driver’s seat.”

Barbara Baumgarten, whose husband is the executive director of Community-Minded Enterprises, worked as a volunteer in organizing the Ecuador exchange program and is now co-facilitator for the youth council. She said the voices of young people are often disregarded until they’re of voting age, which stifles their tendency to get involved.

“We should keep them talking from the time they’re young all through their lives, and we should learn to listen,” she said. “That’s my role here – to listen and encourage them to take what they’re passionate about to fruition.”

LC junior Willow Tomeo, 18, said she enjoys the sense of purpose she gets from her involvement with the youth council, recalling days when she didn’t have much to do. “There’s got to be more to life than just hanging out roasting marshmallows on toothpicks with a lighter,” she said.

Weech said she decided to get involved with community organizing after seeing many of her friends leave for “cooler” cities, a designation she thinks Spokane could earn with a little effort. “People complain all the time that there’s nothing to do in Spokane, but nobody does anything about it,” she said. “I wanted to jump on board with the people who are doing something and hopefully give people who are still in high school a reason to think about staying here.”

One way the youth council hopes to achieve this is by organizing Gathering Places – community centers tailored to fit individual neighborhoods’ needs. Weech said these centers could house local markets, artist and musician space and community gardens. “We want this to be kind of a block party, but with resources to help it function all year round,” Weech said.

The group met with Spokane Mayor Mary Verner to discuss the project, which the youth council hopes to fund through grants and community support. “She was really enthusiastic about it,” Weech said. “She helped get us in touch with the right people to work with us on specific aspects of the project.”

The group is trying to find a location for the first Gathering Place and has been talking with business and civic leaders in the Hillyard area, where a revitalization effort is under way. After presenting the idea for Gathering Places to a citywide coalition of neighborhood councils, Weech said Hillyard was the first to respond. “They were by far the most enthusiastic.”

Weech said the youth council hopes to find a neglected structure and refurbish it as a “green” building, much like the Saranac building downtown, which houses Community-Minded Enterprises. Sabina Noll, a 17-year-old junior at Lewis and Clark who helps write grants for youth council projects, said the group is looking for teens in the Hillyard area who can provide input on the project as it moves forward.

The youth council is involved in a number of other projects, such as a poster campaign, a new blog and “Raise Your Voice,” a weekly radio show on KYRS. The group also is involved in local events and is planning a “Make It Art” booth for kids at ArtFest.

Baumgarten sees teens like those in the youth council as an “untapped resource.”

“We need their creativity, their passion and that sense of immortality that gives them permission to invent a world they feel would be compatible with their dreams,” she said. “If we can provide a pathway for their expression in order to heal and rejuvenate the community we live in, we should do it.”