Learning about leadership park operations, how to run a business. And more, those are just some of the things local teens have a chance to do by being a part of the city’s Youth Advisory Board. This afternoon, we have David and Dave on with us to learn more guys.
We know teens and pre teens have a lot of opinions and you wanna hear them all, but it makes no sense to have some 60 year old guy. Tell him, tell him how to run a park system if, if you’ve got kids who can take part and have great suggestions.
Absolutely. Exactly what we’ve heard is from the youth. We, they want their input to be heard a lot in the city. They have a lot of amazing ideas and events they wanna put on themselves. And so we wanna give the that youth the opportunity.
Um We just opened up our applications for the Youth Advisory board. They opened March 1st and they closed April 1st. Um This is an opportunity for the youth to get involved in their government, learn more about policies and procedures and get into the park system.
Yeah, we’ll, we’ll post the uh the link to apply before April 1st here in a moment, Dave. Uh It seems I import, it seems like getting on this board. There’s so many things you can learn uh that you’re gonna need. I in the rest of your life in conducting yourself.
Talk about that a little bit. So a lot of it is leadership skills. So we’re really looking for young people who can process things well and learn about our parks and our open green spaces and to be a leader and to be able to make decisions
And behind that, we wanna be able to back them up. There are a lot of different things these kids wanna do in life and we wanna be able to show them the way also. What are some of the suggestions you guys have gotten from the Youth Advisory Board in the past?
They want to see more mental health initiatives. They feel like ever since COVID mental and physical health have been neglected drastically, um They want to see more of their involvement in government, be po government policies and procedures. Um just about the
Different things that we bring to City council. They wanna be involved in that. Um They also wanna be involved, excuse me and maintaining these green spaces and park spaces. Uh They wanna get the youth out into the, into the community so that they can and have a more
Enjoyment with our park systems because ever since COVID as well. The park systems have been a little neglected too and, you know, money’s been tight for a lot of the, the parks and I know that’s been ongoing thing and trying to get more and I think
We’re realizing that the parks were real key to giving kids fun things to do and keep them doing things, keeping them busy and enjoying and, and learning at the same time. W what parks are we talking about? That, that this is encompassing?
So this would be with all our parks as far as their decision making goes. I mean, there’s a lot of parks big and small and yes, yes, I think we got about 100 and 20 parks. Seriously. Yes. Yes.
So it’s, it’s, it’s a, it’s a, it’s really a big thing and a lot of, a lot of it is kids wanna hear back from individuals in our community. So we bring in guest speakers to be able to encourage them also and to listen some of,
To some of the ideas that they have. So you’re da you’re an advisor. Now, were you on the board? Is itself a youth advisory board? Um uh Well, previously I was just working with the uh board in college, but once I joined the staff,
I was able to become the adviser of the board, which gave me a more hands on um ability to work with the group. So what other things, uh community service that’s gotta be really important. Uh the things that you, you have a part in the board. Absolutely.
We try to get involved in our community as much as possible. Uh For example, April 8th, we have the solar eclipse watch party that we’re gonna be in attendance in and helping out with. So that’ll be a great experience as well as our roller skating parties and
Um a pumpkin palooza. We do a lot of community involvement opportunities. That’s amaz what, what time of a time commitment is this board? And it goes for two years. Right. Dave, it’s a two year time commitment. They, we, they meet once a month, they discuss a number of different issues and
In between there, they’re volunteer to get involved in a number of different things throughout the community and learning about city government is probably invaluable too because a lot of these kids may, may spark a, you know, public service and go into want to become a city councilman someday.
Right. Right. We try to get them involved in those experiences as well. Uh during their graduation and induction, they actually were, had the opportunity to sit around the council chairs, um and talk to them about different policies and procedures and how voting in city council works as well.
Yeah, I wonder how receptive mayor Wade is to somebody tell him how to do his job. Right. He was very, he was very receptive to what they wanted to talk about and what they wanted um to hear from in their community.
So, leadership skills, you’ve picked up a lot of leadership skills from that. Absolutely. And we have a lot of emerging leaders, they uh get involved in the different community initiatives and they just find ways that they can tweak and become, make it become better.
So those are things that we wanna instill in them as they go through this process before we go, I wanna show how, how to, there we go the uh website to apply application deadlines, April 1st and toledo.ohio.gov/youth Board, Dave Davion.
Thank you so much for coming and talking about that. Good luck to both of you. Thank you.
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