Community Discussion on Youth - D1 Board minutes 1/27/14

The District 1 Community Council Board met on January 27 at Conway Rec Center. Thanks to the 20+ individuals in attendance on this very, very cold evening! The Board approved its end-of-budget year financial reports that showed a less than $1000 decrease in our net assets. This decrease represented a portion of the investment we put into our new database system. We had strong financial support from our donors that compensated for much of the total investment made.

Our guest was Chuck Armstrong, Chief Legislative Officer of the Rixmann Companies (parent company of Pawn America, PA Exchange and PayDay America). He talked to us about how things are going at the Suburban Avenue location, their desire to consolidate into one location all three of these local businesses and then talked about the commitment they have to the community. They were a big supporter of National Night Out, but are making an additional commitment of $2500 for our youth programming. We are now in the process of outlining just what we will use that money for.

We had a discussion about the youth programming and planning for future youth investments. We heard from Tim Turner and Chris Melendez about the Young Men’s Group that they have been shepherding over the last year. They now have about 30 young men between the ages of 10 and 18 years who are attending their weekly gatherings. These gatherings include discussions about a variety of topics, hearing from speakers with wisdom to share, and sharing a monthly meal courtesy of Culvers Restaurant. Thanks to Parks and Rec, Brueggers at SunRay and the Sanneh Foundation, they are also cooking, serving and sharing breakfast on Saturdays before sports activities. We also heard a summary of work that Ebony Young (our youth initiative organizer) is doing around a Young Women’s Group, including a partnership with Battle Creek Middle School for a “chapter” of the YWG that will be held after school twice a week. Our organization is seeking funding from a variety of sources to support and expand all this work.

As we talked about the future, one of the young men who attends the YMG said that, before the group came along, he had never had a way to actually meet other young people in the neighborhood. He said that he had been skeptical about joining the group, but when he understood that the young men actually had OWNERSHIP of the group, when he understood the commitment the adult facilitators had made to the youth, he felt as if he had found home.

One of the suggestions that he had was that there be more “events” for youth in the area. As we think about the businesses, organizations, and activities we have and want in the area we need to think about how the entire community can be involved in creating such events – think potlucks and board game nights, regular time slots for all-age pick-up games or tournaments – things that cost very little time and money but have a huge impact on a sense of belonging.

There was also discussion about connecting youth and elders – examples of how that is already happening but what can be done to bolster those connections. We will be discussing with our funders purchasing YOUTH GROUP t-shirts that will identify the young people working together in the community as they take it upon themselves to do snow shoveling, raking, litter clean up and so on.

We need to get the word out that all this is happening, can be happening even more, and that EVERYONE is welcome to participate.