Youth on a Mission met on Saturday and held a Meet the Council event. Youth on A Mission (YAM) is made up of high school students from the Unit 5 school district. Together the group forms a Youth Advisory Council. YAM seeks to engage youth through a leadership training program with a focus on being active in local government. Members learn about community service, advocacy and strategic planning. The program year is 12 sessions, running from September to April/May.
While all Normal Councilmembers were invited to the event so all the YAM members could meet them, only Karyn Smith was able to attend. Cities 92.9 asked Smith why she accepted the invitation.
Smith told us, “I came today because I think it is important for young people to get connected into local government and to be able to have access to their elected representatives to ask questions and find out how we work and what we do and so I gave them my background and then the floor was opened for them to ask questions about what they were curious about.”
Smith then summarized the background she shared with the students for us leading with the following, “What I shared was the importance of working with colleagues on the council because you have to get four votes to pass anything. And I talked about my advocacy for the disabled and fighting to get the Connect Transit funding that could succeed in getting the “One Fare for All” after that (the Connect Transit) working group recommended it.”
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Tracy Freeman and Paige Malloy work with YAM. Freeman is a retired teacher from Normal West High School and Malloy is currently a student at ISU. Both worked with the group last year, which was its first, and are exuberant about what the group accomplished last year and what it is doing this year. We spoke with them together at once and they shared their excitement.
Regarding last year Malloy said, “It was really run by them (the students). If you weren’t able to see it, they did presentations to the town council. You can watch it on YouTube. That was the best experience. They created over the course of months their own presentation and what they thought was important.”
“And what was missing from the town,” Freeman jumped in. ” They… brainstormed projects and then they selected projects. And as adults we sat back and watched them. It was fascinating.”
If you are interested in becoming a mentor or volunteer, please contact the Town of Normal or you can complete an online application here.
