By JAMES BELL
Hays Post
A new initiative from the Heartland Community Foundation looks for a new perspective on the future of the area – youth.
Members of the Youth Action Council will help inform the future of the area, by developing ideas and sharing their perspectives as they begin meeting later this summer.
“This has kind of been brewing for a while,” said Sarah Meitner, Heartland Community Foundation executive director. “And it really stems from the feedback that we were getting from the teenagers in our area in the past.”
She said $40,000 was awarded to teenage-led projects during a regular grant cycle over a year ago. This led to a realization of how involved in shaping the future some area youth wanted to be.
“They were coming to us and applying for grant money to do those projects, and when I added it all up, it was just staggering,” Meitner said. “The amount that the kids were coming in and asking for, which is amazing, just kind of tells me that there was already discussion in the schools with some of the teenagers or possibly the Scout Troops because it was also Eagle Scouts that were considering Heartland and grant opportunities when they were looking for funding.”
And so, last August, the foundation hosted Teen Talkback to get a feel for what they see as community needs.
“That sort of kicked it off,” Meitner said. “We’ve had some projects that came out of that, but I wanted to have something a little bit more regular — something that would meet regularly. [I wanted something] a little bit more formal and would follow the steps of a leadership program a little bit like what Leadership Hays does, but in a teen format.”
The result is what she calls a community engagement program.
Participants submitted applications in April. Those who were selected to participate were notified in May. She said she was “blown away” by the ideas that came from the applications.
“So, I'm really looking forward to getting this group of kids in a room,” she said.
So far, 23 participants were selected, 10 from Ellis, 11 from Rooks and two from Trego counties. Meitner said she hopes to find more participants from Trego County.
“We wanted representation from all of the area high schools, and there are seven in the Heartland area,” Meitner said. “They are going to all come together as a Heartland group in August for orientation. We'll start learning about community foundations and what it means to be engaged in your community. Then [we will be] doing some of those personality type things that you do at leadership programs to [gain] some self-awareness.”
“And then after that, they're going to meet as individual counties for the next few months to keep learning about what their own county needs are,” she continued.
The groups will do more than just develop ideas. During the foundation’s fall grant cycle, the groups will be given the opportunity to review applications and allocate some funds.
“I'm going to pull four or five grant applications per county and let that group of kids review them and then allocate some funds,” Meitner said. “That way they are kind of given the power to decide how might these granting situations look and what projects are most important.”
A retreat is planned in January, and they will be given opportunities to begin their own projects.
“I’ve applied for some funding from the Hansen Foundation to give them some seed money,” Meitner said. “I don't know for sure exactly how much of that they're going to get yet, but the hope is they'll each get a nice little chunk of money to come up with projects that they think are important and they want to lead.”
While the money is intended to help launch the projects, the youth will also need to secure funds on their own.
“They're going to need to do a little bit of fundraising,” Meitner said.
She said she had already been in touch with some local companies that have agreed to hear funding requests from the group, but Meitner is also hopeful others will step up.
While the group will likely look at immediate needs, Meitner also hopes it can be the basis of long-term planning for the area.
“The long-term impact of this, because we're working on a project that they feel is important and that they put their hearts into and that they work on, is it will tether them to this region," Meitner said.
"Whether they go on to K-State or they move on or leave Kansas altogether, they will still have that project that they did here at home. Who knows how that might bring them back someday.”