Great Bend High School student Jasmine Figueroa has received state recognition for taking a leadership role in her school and community. She and five other members of the Youth Crew recently traveled to Grapevine, Texas, near Dallas, to learn more about how to bring positive youth-led change to Barton County.
Youth Crew is part of the Central Kansas Partnership and all six of the teens attended a meeting on Thursday to tell adult task force members what they learned at the week-long Community Anti-Drug Coalition of America (CADCA) Youth Conference, July 16-20. The teens are Aaron Deason, a recent GBHS graduate; Figueroa, GBHS junior; Alvin Bowyer, Ellinwood sophomore; Makinzie Beneke, GBHS freshman; and eighth graders MaKiah Webber from Hoisington and Grace Vandine from Great Bend. They were joined by Tyler Morton, Juvenile Services prevention advocate, and Holly Bowyer with the Center for Counseling and Consultation.
Outstanding Youth Leader
Morton presented the 2023 YLinK Outstanding Youth Leader award to Figueroa, reading from the Youth Crew nomination.
“Jasmine started volunteering with our program when it was first established back in June of 2021. She is an integral part of Youth Crew and always helps lead our efforts in making positive community change,” he said.
“Only being a junior in high school, Jasmine exemplifies what we hope to see from many of the youth that participate in this program. She helps plan events, leads educational meetings, and never shies away from the opportunity to meet with local community leaders, school administrators, and even state legislators to share our message. Now we can add national to that as well,” Morton said.
This year, Figueroa is president of the GBHS chapter of HOSA (Health Occupations Students of America) a group for future health professionals. She is on the state council for Resist, the group “fighting the influence of big tobacco. Last March, she helped put together an event advocating for her peers to “lay off tobacco.”
“With the help of Youth Crew and HOSA, Jasmine and company disseminated nearly 1,000 Hawaiian leis to students and faculty in an attempt to unify efforts of reducing tobacco use in our school community,” Morton said. She attends state and national conferences, is active in her school and her church, regularly attends Youth Crew meetings and logged more than 300 hours of community service last year.
The Texas trip
Morton said the Youth Crew members were able to mix work and play in a week filled with workshops and speakers. More than 2,400 people attended, including 500 youth.
The students shared some of that experience at Thursday’s stakeholders’ meeting.
“I really enjoyed how much the youth came together,” Beneke said. “I felt really strong and I have more evidence and proof to back up what we are constantly talking about.”
Figueroa said some of the evidence was surprising.
“There was one session where I learned that marijuana can speed up the process of genetically predisposed diseases, such as schizophrenia, dementia and heart disease. (Teens may think) ‘that’s not going to affect me until I’m 60’ but we got to see patient cases where some 20-year-olds were already developing dementia because they were using, so that was a big eye opener.”
She also learned to ask questions about the source of data. When a speaker from Washington, D.C., said flavored vodka seltzers such as Truly brand are popular with underage drinkers because they count their calories at parties, Figueroa questioned his information. Morton encouraged her to talk to the presenter afterward.
“I asked him, ‘Where did you get that opinion of we’re counting calories?’ And he was like, ‘Well, back in the ’70s ...’ Then I asked, is there a Youth Advisory Council that you get these opinions from where you’re also seeing what the youth are thinking?”
While Figueroa said she doesn’t consume alcohol, she felt she had a better grasp on what draws teens to “Trulys.” “It’s the 4 P’s (of marketing) – promotion and all that stuff; it’s the colors and how cheap it is, the price, not counting calories. I told him more about it but he didn’t connect with what I was trying to say.
“But it was worth the effort,” she said.
Across the nation
Beneke said the experience was “eye-opening,” as she learned what’s going on in communities all across the nation. She listed gun violence, vaping, tobacco and cannabis use. But together, the participants saw solutions they could take back to their communities.
Webber said they are working on a plan to prevent nicotine use. “Vaping is definitely in our schools,” she said. “We learned a lot about how to resist that, so we can bring that back to our communities and share it with all the other kids here.”
Beneke said their action steps will include writing a plan that includes a budget while relying on sources such as grant funding and data provided by local resources such as Juvenile Services.
Deason, Vandine and Bowyer also said it was a positive experience. Some of the fun things they did between programs included visiting a water park, a Texas Rangers baseball game and a Buc-ee’s store.
Spreading the word
Now they will help with the promotion of Youth Crew in their schools.
“We need to focus on the positive side of ‘not everybody’s doing it,’” Figueroa said of behavior such as vaping. “Sometimes we like to focus on the data – this is how many kids are doing it. But there’s also that group that we don’t see – these kids aren’t doing it. Let’s focus on this and show them that there are people who back them up.”
Youth Crew continues to be engaged in a mix of fun social activities and community service. On Aug. 9, members will pick up trash in parks in Great Bend, Ellinwood and Hoisington. Then in September, they’ll help with the Glow for Life suicide prevention walk/run on Sept. 16 and the follow-up Pedal for Prevention in remembrance of Devin Randolph on Sept. 23.
They are also active at Mental Health Awareness Day in May and a kickball tournament in the spring. The tournament challenges youth to kick the habit of using nicotine products.
Learn more about Youth Crew and/or sign up at ckpartnership.org/youth-crew or check out Youth Crew-CKP on Facebook or youthcrew_ckp on Instagram.
