Looking Back …..
Foundation supporters have seen a lot of accomplishments in the past 30+ years. While most of those accomplishments center around donors and grants, some are merely about planting seeds they hoped would grow.
The idea of starting a Youth Council was about giving young people a voice, giving them lessons in leadership and philanthropy and – about planting a seed.
Foundation literature across the country was full of information on Youth Councils in the late 1990s, recalled Paul Hinderaker, a WCF Board member at the time. “We learned that councils were being formed in Sioux Falls and Huron.” So, the discussion began. “Ultimately, our staff and board embraced the idea – partly to provide training for youth in community leadership and partly to be a resource for the Foundation.”
Nancy Turbak was also a board member then. “I liked the idea of Youth Council for three reasons,” she said. “First, I wanted to get young people – particularly those with strong leadership skills – involved in philanthropy, to plant seeds in their individual lives that hopefully will bear fruit later. Second, I wanted some of the money the WCF was spending on youth in our community to be spent only after consulting young people themselves, to help us target the most worthwhile projects. Finally, giving young people the opportunity to make decisions with real consequences is good practice for them; generally, the more we trust and expect young people to make good decisions, the more they do so.”
“One thing we also believed, was that high school kids should not be bogged down in a continuous fund-raising project,” Paul added. “It was all right for the kids to make a call or two every year, but it was more important to let them start out right away evaluating requests and awarding meaningful grants. The board’s initial and continuing financial support is an important reason that, nearly 10 years later, our Youth Council has succeeded as an organization and that the kids have enjoyed the experience.”
Both Turbak and Hinderaker also credit Deb Popham, 1999 interim director; and Jan DeBerg, executive director from 2000 on, with the initial Youth Council idea and the council’s continuing success.
The first Watertown Community Foundation Youth Council met in August of 2001, and it has been going strong ever since. Generally, youths entering their junior year in high school apply and are elected to a two-year term on the six-member council
The group typically receives two to three times more grant requests than it can award, but the members take on the task responsibly and wholeheartedly. To date, the Watertown Community Foundation Youth Council has given more than $70,000 to local organizations and programs that focus on youth. Those dollars translate into something very positive and meaningful to Watertown youth when you consider what the money becomes: Thousands of free passes to the Bramble Park Zoo, equipment for Watertown Area Special Olympics, the Watertown Youth Soccer Association, Figure Skating Club and other athletic organizations; items for kids at the Watertown (formerly Women’s) Resource Center, Camp Chance, Kid Shift and the Boys & Girls Club… the list goes on.