say-so | by david hopson
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Kansas City’s Promise Youth, an offshoot of Kansas City’s Promise, began as a committee comprised of metro area high school students who had charged themselves with seeking opportunities for their cohorts to serve. (ed. note: see special section on Kansas City’s Promise in this issue.)
They committed to improvement of existing volunteer service clubs or programs and establishing them wherever they were absent. This “promise” would be met by the summer of 2000.
They began by organizing a conference in December of 1998 attended by more than 400 students and faculty. Its theme was how to best provide further training in the establishment and improvement of service clubs in schools. The Promise Youth prepared “TV: The Guide,” a guide to teen volunteerism that included, among other things, instructive information on finding opportunities to serve; establishing service clubs in schools; improving pre-existing ones, and techniques for getting others to volunteer.
They also organized a number of volunteer projects so that youths from other schools would have the opportunity to meet new people and give back to the community through service. And this year, they surveyed attendees of the December 1998 conference to ascertain the impact they had had and whether they had fulfilled their promise. The response was universally positive. Virtually every metro area school was found to have a youth service program of some sort, and most had improved the quality and level of participation in their service clubs following the conference.
Today, the promise that the Promise Youth made has been fulfilled. Their accomplishment, along with that of the entirety of Kansas City was recently celebrated this past September at A Salute To Kansas City’s Promise when retired General Colin Powell came to Hale Arena to commend our city for its great accomplishments.
However, a promise fulfilled need not be a promise forgotten, and the Promise Youth have not forgotten theirs. They are continuing to work at advocating youth service among high school students. In conjunction with the Youth Volunteer Corps of America, they have started a youth congress comprised of high school students throughout the metroplex. Their goal is two representatives from each high school. The congress will have the same mission as Promise Youth, and convene regularly to conceive, organize and implement various projects and other youth service activities.
They say that, “the best never rest.” So it is with Kansas City’s Promise Youth. Realizing that, they are moving into a new phase, they are moving to adapt to the new existence that awaits them so that they might better serve the youth of Kansas City.
As the Promise Youth are evolving into a Youth Congress, so is the leadership of Kansas City’s Promise changing. A steering committee has been nominated and appointed to help guide the organization in the right direction with the hope that we in the Heartland of America might remain at the forefront of promise making, promise keeping, and youth opportunities.
We wish them all the best and
sincerely hope that they might succeed to an even greater degree than they
already have.
David Hopson is a freshman at Rockhurst College and member of the KC Promise steering committee. Phone: 913.441.6655. e-Mail:dr_hopson@hotmail.com.