November 6, 2022- Macon County high school students gathered at Eisenhower High School for the inaugural Youth Empowerment Conference, hosted by Young Leaders In Action.
YLIA’s Program Facilitator, Temethia Joyner, and YLIA leaders were inspired to create this event while they were at the Youth Cebrin Goodman Teen Institute (CGTI) conference over the summer.
“I wanted to create a space where students were able to hear from speakers about things that they really cared about and ways for them to grow in their leadership,” Joyner said.
The conference was made possible through the financial support of the Community Foundation and a $1,000 grant that was provided by Operation Snowball, “an international youth program that empowers student leaders through prevention education, community advocacy, and leadership development.”
“I am thrilled that Operation Snowball has provided us with this grant,” Joyner said. “Young Leaders in Action has never hosted an event like this one. The financial support from The Community Foundation of Macon County and Operation Snowball will allow for this to be an excellent experience for our local young high school leaders.”
The grant supported the cost of providing a motivational speaker for the event. Brent Swolsky, an adult mentor, who Joyner met while at the CGTI conference, served as the keynote speaker for the event.
“He [Swolsky] does basically in his high school what I do in Macon County with my high school students, Joyner said. “So we were just talking and I found out he speaks. He talked to me about the topics that he authors and I felt like they aligned with who we are and would be a good idea to help grow my students as well.”
Following Swolsky’s keynote speech at the Youth Empowerment Conference, the students participated in workshops focused on mental health, led by adult speakers. The workshops included Mindful Meditation, Finding Balance, Helping Others Produce Excellence (HOPE), and Safe Dates.
The decision to address mental health, was made by the young leaders who were inspired once again by the CGTI conference.
“The students came up with a problem that they thought we needed to face in our community and it was the mental health of young people, Joyner said. “They discussed the change in the high schools after the pandemic, and were able to find the root cause being that mental health was a problem. As part of that, they have come up each month with some kind of activity to address these issues in each of the high schools.
Leaders in YLIA are hopeful that this conference will have an impact on their fellow students and lead them to being more involved in their community.
“I am looking forward to seeing the impact our breakout sessions will have on the students of our community,” Weston Grohne, President of YLIA said. “I believe that the students that attend our conference will become more passionate about serving in our community as well as developing new, better ways to work with others.”
