Teens Inspiring the Community: Seed613 Cohort 6

Over the last six months through the Seed613 fellowship program, twelve female identifying teens who come from the northern suburbs, the city of Chicago and as far as Champaign, Illinois, have come together twice a month to do something magnificent. With dedication, excitement, and an openness to learn, the cohort developed valuable skills to create solutions to relevant issues in their communities they wanted to address. Based on shared interest in a focus area, the teens were put into groups to dream, research, plan, and create.

On Thursday, April 28, all their hard work culminated in a beautiful Launch Night. Friends, family, and community members had an opportunity to share in an evening where each group presented their impact projects.

Pencils for Potential is an organization working to help close the education gap by providing school supplies to schools and students in underserved communities.

Let’s Talk About It is a magazine targeted towards young women to discuss mental health and self-care.

The Health Information Initiative is a database for teenagers to access information related to physical and mental health issues they are potentially struggling with, as well as a site for people to find and support organizations that address solutions related to these issues.

Cookcessible is a company and website that helps people create healthy lifestyles as we make good food cooking quick and accessible to all.

We also had a chance to hear from our Keynote speaker, Jessica Leving Seigel, who shared her knowledge and provided us all with the tools for great storytelling. As we closed out the evening, the Launch Night attendees visited with each impact project’s team and learned even more about their mission and about these inspiring young women.

As the program director and facilitator, I was beaming with pride the entire evening. When this cohort first came together back in November, they didn’t know each other well and their ideas were larger than life, so large in fact we filled a large piece of butcher block paper with all the problems they wanted to solve! It took a lot of hard work, hours, and collective teamwork to narrow down all these incredible ideas into something they could work with. After months of hard work, the presentations blew the audience away and the poise and confidence of these young women was talked about all through the evening. “The young women did an amazing job! Many adult professionals couldn’t do what they just did up there!” were just a few of the notes of recognition I heard as the evening ended.

All too often society suggests that the younger generations don’t get it, that they are selfish and self-centered.  I strongly disagree. Maybe we just aren’t listening.  I read a poem at the start of Launch Night from Apple’s iconic “Think Different” campaign from the late ‘90s. It reads, “…they have no respect for the status quo.…You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them, disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They invent. They imagine. They heal. They explore. They create. They inspire. They push the human race forward…”

With programs like Seed613 that provide a place to think big and work to change the world with the support of the community, I have no doubt we are in great hands. In the days after Launch Night, I received “Thank You” messages from the teens and their parents.  “Thank you for all your hard work that you put into the program.”, “I really enjoyed it and learned a lot.” and “It was really great working with you.” To that I would say, Thank YOU, for the same, and for reminding me of why I love what I do. I am honored to have shared this journey with these teens in hope that it inspires them to continue on to making our world better each and every day!