Notice of Cybersecurity Incident

Young Volunteer of the Year Award Presentation

2019 Young Vol­un­teer of the Year Spotlight

This fall, KYC was thrilled to spe­cial­ly rec­og­nize the extra­or­di­nary efforts of two ded­i­cat­ed vol­un­teers as the 2019 Vol­un­teer of the Year and the 2019 Young Vol­un­teer of the Year, a new award to cel­e­brate a youth vol­un­teer. Each of their con­tri­bu­tions has helped shape the course of KYC’s pro­gram­ming as they worked to pro­vide bet­ter out­comes for our com­mu­ni­ty members.

2019 Young Vol­un­teer of the Year: Faith!

Faith and Mom

A year ago, Faith was a new stu­dent at Conant, hav­ing just moved to Illi­nois from Ten­nessee. Then a sopho­more, she knew she want­ed to get involved in her new school and her new com­mu­ni­ty. Ken­neth Young Center’s Youth Advi­so­ry Coun­cil (YAC) hap­pened to be recruit­ing for new mem­bers at the same time that Faith was in search of new oppor­tu­ni­ties. She talked with KYC staff, learned more about the YAC, and decid­ed to go to her first meeting. 

She learned that mem­bers of the YAC par­tic­i­pate in pre­ven­tion efforts and local pol­i­cy imple­men­ta­tion process­es that are intend­ed to decrease sub­stance use rates among youth. Although she had nev­er worked on any sub­stance use pre­ven­tion projects before, she imme­di­ate­ly felt that she would be able to make an impact, and that her voice would tru­ly be heard. One year and lots of hard work lat­er, KYC couldn’t be more proud of the incred­i­ble work that she has done and the great things she has helped the YAC and her fel­low stu­dents to accomplish.

Mak­ing An Impact

Young Volunteer of the Year Landscape

The YAC cre­ates anti-sub­stance use cam­paigns that tar­get a num­ber of dif­fer­ent sub­stances, but Faith has been espe­cial­ly pas­sion­ate about the work she’s doing to pre­vent vap­ing among her peers. She feels that vap­ing has become a huge epi­dem­ic, and she knows that this is a true chal­lenge that peo­ple are fac­ing right here, in her school, and in her com­mu­ni­ty. Although she hasn’t lived here for long, she has tak­en great steps towards mak­ing her new home a lit­tle bit health­i­er for everyone.

Through her expe­ri­ence with the YAC, Faith has quick­ly learned steps that can lead to decreased sub­stance use, how to edu­cate the com­mu­ni­ty to help solve these issues, and how to imple­ment the resources that are need­ed to sup­port healthy choic­es. Faith and oth­er stu­dents who work on the anti-vap­ing cam­paign part­ner with admin­is­tra­tors at their schools and lead­ers in the com­mu­ni­ty to devel­op and imple­ment strate­gies that res­onate with young peo­ple. Their strate­gies have proven suc­cess­ful in large part because their cam­paigns are designed col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly, with mem­bers of their tar­get­ed age demo­graph­ic – stu­dents – lead­ing the charge.

This is some­thing that Faith rec­og­nizes as a pow­er­ful oppor­tu­ni­ty. As a young per­son in the YAC, her opin­ions are sought, her insight is val­ued, and her advice is trans­lat­ed direct­ly into the action plans for YAC cam­paigns. She feels sur­round­ed by a sup­port­ive team of peo­ple all work­ing to make a dif­fer­ence. She is ener­gized by the group’s plan­ful focus on action, and she gets to wit­ness first-hand the impact that her work has on her peers.

Grow­ing Leaders

Young Volunteer Award Presentation1

In addi­tion to her dri­ve to cre­ate health­i­er com­mu­ni­ties as a whole, Faith is also pas­sion­ate about lead­er­ship devel­op­ment, both for her­self and among her peers. 

One of Faith’s favorite oppor­tu­ni­ties that has been offered to her through the YAC was her chance to attend a CAD­CA (Com­mu­ni­ty Anti-Drug Coali­tions of Amer­i­ca) train­ing con­ven­tion. There, she learned how to cre­ate suc­cess­ful anti-sub­stance use cam­paigns. Per­haps even more impor­tant­ly, she felt that she was auto­mat­i­cal­ly treat­ed as a leader from the moment she arrived at CAD­CA. This expe­ri­ence helped her learn about her­self and huge­ly expand­ed her lead­er­ship skills. She con­tin­ues to strength­en those skills and main­tains an image of her­self as a leader through her work with the YAC.

Faith also works to inspire and edu­cate her peers through the school club that she found­ed – the Black Leader Achiev­ers (BLA) club. She saw a need for a stu­dent club focused on lead­er­ship devel­op­ment, and a need for a club focused on black edu­ca­tion and cul­ture. She decid­ed to found a group that com­bined the two, and cre­at­ed the BLA. Faith had a per­son­al dri­ve to start this club, too. She feels that her moth­er and grand­moth­er taught her how to be con­fi­dent when she has an opin­ion, which Faith rec­og­nizes as an invalu­able les­son. Now Faith wants to ensure that her fel­low stu­dents all have a chance to learn this, and is pass­ing along that dri­ve through the BLA.

Get Involved!

Faith enjoys learn­ing, grow­ing, and mak­ing an impact. She doesn’t think of her vol­un­teerism as work – she’s just doing what she likes doing, and she wants to share it with oth­ers. Her goal is to edu­cate oth­er oth­ers about how to be health­i­er, how to grow in lead­er­ship, and how to find oppor­tu­ni­ties to do good things. She encour­ages any­one inter­est­ed in vol­un­teer­ing to just go for it – test it out, take new oppor­tu­ni­ties, and don’t be afraid to move on to some­thing new if you don’t find the right fit right away. 

Ken­neth Young Cen­ter and the YAC are thrilled that Faith has cho­sen to share her time and tal­ents with us, and con­grat­u­late her once again on being named the 2019 Young Vol­un­teer of the Year!

Are you look­ing for an oppor­tu­ni­ty to make an impact as a vol­un­teer? Check out Ken­neth Young Cen­ter’s Vol­un­teer roles here! Learn more about the YAC and the Com­mu­ni­ties for Pos­i­tive Youth Devel­op­ment (CPYD) Coali­tion here.


Previous Article Next Article
You're Not Alone

5.7 million
Amer­i­cans expe­ri­ence a men­tal health dis­or­der in a giv­en year.

Get Involved

How You Can Help

Keep up to date with KYC!

Get the latest Kenneth Young Center news and insights emailed to you each month. Just complete the form below to subscribe.