February 21, 2009

IPFW's Walb Union

8:30am-1:00pm 

Great KIDS make Great COMMUNITIES is proud to help sponsor the Allen County United Youth Summit. The Allen County United Youth Summit is made possible through the support from the City of Fort Wayne, Great KIDS make Great COMMUNITIES, Leadership Fort Wayne, Purdue Extension Services, Upward Bound and the United Way.

What is the Allen County United Youth Summit?

The Youth Summit is a daylong event designed to empower youth, being held at the Grand Wayne Center. There will be speakers, workshops and a keynote presentation by local leaders all designed to help young people identify concerns THEY feel are important, brainstorm ways to address those concerns, and "Make It Happen" - do something about those concerns! Its all about service learning and servant leadership, and young people being empowered to make a difference in their comomunity!

So this is just a motivational session, right?

WRONG! We want the lessons learned and the empowerment gained from the Allen County United Youth Summit to continue to flourish well after the Summit itself. Youth will be talking about important topics identified by other middle and high school students as issues of concern.  From there, teens will have the chance to voice what they would like to see done in the county to improve it and the lives of youth and adults! At the end of the day, participating youth will have the opportunity to apply for grants through Youth as Resources to see their ideas come to fruition!

What is Service Learning?

Service learning is more than just community service. Service learning looks the root causes of problems, and ways to correct them on a permanent basis while at the same time remediating the problem for the immediate present.  A good example of this happened recently in our area, where a team of students and their teacher worked in a local river, taking water samples to test for pollution, and cleaning up the garbage they found in the river.  The students studied the garbage to learn what it was, which would help inform them where the garbage was coming from. They then began exploring ways to prevent more garbage from ending up in the river. Prevention in this example is the solution, the immediate remediation is cleaning the river of the present garbage. 

For more information about Service Learning, a brief history of the Allen County United Youth Summit and the grants available to students who attend the Summit, check out this Powerpoint presentation provided by Mike Talbott of the Purdue Extension Services/4-H.  

What's the cost?

Five dollars a person, with group discounts available. Additionally, new for this year is a scholarship teens can fill out to have the registration fee waived. See the Youth Summit's website www.acuys.org for more details.

Registration? Schedule? More Details?

Go to www.acuys.org for more information, details, registration forms, contact people, etc.  To hear what youth are saying about the Allen County United Youth Summit, go to www.myspace.com/acyouthsummit. Don't wait! Register to day. For other information or to have a registration form sent to you, contact Mike Talbott at (260) 481-6826.

0)