It’s a very busy time of the year for our Youth Advisory Council (YAC) students. 

It’s a unique opportunity for students from various schools to come together around the common goal of serving the community. If you think about any other time students from various schools come together, it’s all about competition, whether that is sports, forensics, robotics, scholar bowl, etc. This is the only program I know of that brings together high school students from 10 high schools in 7 districts to serve their community. 

Our YAC program was created in 1998 by volunteer Henri Goettel, whose dedication shaped and grew the program that is still thriving 28 years later. A scholarship fund was created in 2009 to honor Henri, in thanks for her leadership of the program. And when we were celebrating Liz McClure's 20 years of service to the foundation in 2014, the board created a scholarship fund in her honor, and Liz chose to have it benefit our YAC students. 

So let’s talk about what these students are doing to serve our community through our School of Philanthropy: 

Fill Those Trucks Food Drive:

As I write this column, our students are making final preparations for their annual “Fill Those Trucks” food drive. On Saturday, March 28th, they will be at 4 area Hy-Vee locations to collect food for Raytown Emergency Assistance (REAP), Community Services League (CSL), and Lee’s Summit Social Services. 

Strike in the Night annual Fundraiser:

They also have their annual fundraiser coming up on April 11^th, their “Strike in the Night” bowling event at the Lunar Bowl in Blue Springs. The proceeds from this fundraiser will be added to their endowment fund, which they have built up over the years, and now has over $130,000. 

The students get to choose each year the organizations to receive the earnings from their endowed fund. Last year, they gave a total of $4,416 to Hope House, Mother’s Refuge, and ReDiscover. 

Annual Senior Picnic

In May we will have our annual YAC picnic, where we will be celebrating the 28 seniors who are graduating this year. It’s one of my favorite events of the year because I get to hear from the graduating seniors what they have learned about philanthropy from their participation in YAC, which is always heartwarming. My primary role at this event is the hotdog chef, but they let me stick around after my cooking duties to hear from our students.

Visiting Nonprofits to Evaluate Grants

There is no summer break for our students. Over the summer they will be making sight visits to nonprofits that have applied through our competitive community grants program. They will be sharing what they learned from their site visits with our Grants Committee and their input truly helps your Community Foundation make better decisions on which requests to fund. We typically have twice the amount of grant requests compared to funds available so tough decisions have to be made each year. 

And throughout the year the students are provided the opportunity to volunteer with nonprofits in our community at their events and hear from nonprofit guest speakers at some of their monthly meetings. Our Youth Advisory Council is definitely a force for good in our community. If you know of a high school student who has a heart for service and would be a good candidate for participation, please send them our way.  

Click here for more information about our Youth Advisory Council.