Doing What You Can

In the face of things you can’t control, focusing on what you CAN do makes a difference, for yourself, for the well-being of those close to you, and for helping comfort someone in distress. Today, students all over Ohio and the nation walked out of the classroom to mark the one-month anniversary of the unspeakable tragedy at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school. Others chose to observe with a moment of silence. This, plus a national march taking place in ten days, represents students focusing on what they feel they CAN do; they can’t enact legislation, or prevent another tragedy from occurring, but they can raise their voice and hope to spur action.

The afternoon of the national event on March 24th, Lorain County youth will be coming together for the 2018 Lorain County Youth Summit, an event planned and hosted by the Youth Fund Advisory Board. The Summit represents what the Youth Fund is doing to help their peers be their own support network in times of stress, grief, and uncertainty. Students will learn how to start difficult conversations. Conversations about mental health, about feeling safe, about suicide. About seeing their friends and classmates struggling and knowing they can do something about it.

When they leave this training, the goal is for each student to know the signs of a fellow student experiencing distress, to start a conversation, and to help each other deal with major life stresses, many of which are beyond their control. 

Last fall, the Youth Fund began planning what the 2018 Summit might look like, beginning with a needs assessment of issues and challenges they observe happening in their schools.  They wanted to provide a way for youth to take ownership of supporting each other when major crises happen, or even just coping with day-to-day academic pressures. It was imperative that the training be youth-driven, provide for peer to peer conversations, and guidance on what to do when inevitably they see a student in psychological distress.

As of today, we have over 150 attendees coming to the Youth Summit. Grace Broome, Youth Fund president, and I will be live on air talking about the Youth Summit this week. Tune in Thursday morning at 7:20 a.m. to AM930 WEOL and on Friday to WKYC Channel 3 for the We the People show at 12:00 p.m.

During the Summit, the Youth Fund will take over our Twitter and Instagram accounts to share in the conversations, so I invite you to follow along.

We are always inspired by the Youth Fund, but on a greater scale, we are thrilled to empower all youth to take on the change they want to see in the world. It exemplifies why we do what we do every day at the Community Foundation. Connecting people who care, with causes that matter.