Elevate Youth return with lessons learned

SANDERS COUNTY - The student leadership of the Elevate Youth Coalition, which includes Greg Wadsworth of Thompson Falls, Jena Paterson of Plains and Ashley Cheesman of St. Regis, had a long week of sun, rain and strategic planning.  Each of the students traveled to Orlando, Florida to take part in the Community Anti Drug Coalitions of Americas’ National Youth Leadership Initiative Track.  

Each day the students began with a group session that incorporated nationally recognized speakers including a special guest appearance by Michael Botticelli, the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.  

“He (Botticelli) really inspired all of us. He reminded us that the change that we need will come directly from us,” Peterson, Sanders County Youth president, said. “He wanted us to know that with the support of our communities, we can do this.  We can help change the perception of drugs and alcohol abuse around us.  We are the real voices in this problem.”

Students participated with nearly 400 youth from across the nation.  

The National Youth Leadership Initiative is taught by youth to other youth - the goal is to be youth lead and adult supported.  Sanders and Mineral County participants were challenged daily to think and plan strategically around the issues in their individual towns and for the joint communities as a whole.  

“We had to identify our community conditions. That was difficult because there are so many,” explained Cheesman, Mineral County Youth president. “We had to really work with the data to narrow down just one thing to work on for this class.  We chose to work on the favorable attitudes of adults towards underage drinking.  As a group we feel like if we are able to reduce the attitude of adults that drinking is just something that kids do and experiment with, we can see our problem reduced.  Our hope is to encourage parents and adults to stop looking the other way when kids are drinking and not to provide a ‘safe’ place to drink because there is no safe place to do dangerous behaviors.  We developed some new skills, learned to make a logic model and work plans to help us stay on track with our goals.”

The conference was more work than fun as the kids were in working session from 8 a.m. - 5 p.m. daily and were responsible for daily group presentations.  

“I am so proud of the work that happened during NYLI. Our communities need to take notice of the motivated minds that will be working on this issue,” Elevate Youth Director Chuck Standeford said. “Every one of our students participated fully and developed out of the box ideas to work towards positive change.  The hard work they did deserves an answer of support from our community.”

The students will return to school with a plan and the knowledge to recruit other students to help with this work.  They look forward to kicking things off with Red Ribbon Week in October.

“Elevate Youth, each year, brings in speakers and entertainment to do assemblies across Mineral and Sanders County,” Standeford explained. “During that time kids will be engaged in many different activities and conversations around this issue, much of that will be student lead by this team.  We also hope to schedule a parent conversation night for each school after the assemblies.”

Orlando provided the kids with plenty of fun activities after the hard work was competed. After sessions were over the students rushed to Disney World to enjoy four very quick hours at one of the parks.  

“It was a great way to blow off a little steam.  It takes a lot of energy to do the kind of work that we did each day,” Wadsworth said. “We were all relieved to be able to go run around and have a different kind of fun.”

Elevate Youth plans to attend a second round of advanced training in Washington DC in February.  They will be hosting raffles, dinners and various fundraisers throughout the year to do so.  

“We could not be more proud of the work that was done in Orlando. These communities have a great group of kids representing them,” Elevate Youth Board of Directors member Mary Furlong said. “Elevate Youth board of directors fully supports this forward movement and are thankful to have such great minds working towards positive change.”