Wellington Youth Council Helping To Create The Next Generation Of Community Leaders

Wellington Youth Council Helping To Create The Next Generation Of Community Leaders

The Wellington Village Council goes to great effort in seeking input from the community on a wide array of topics. Until recently, those efforts were concentrated primarily on the adults in the community. Then, in 2019, the Wellington Youth Council was born, and it is already winning awards and creating success.

“It was part of the Florida League of Cities initiative for engaging youth,” Wellington Mayor Anne Gerwig explained. “I’d been trying to get one started in Wellington for several years.”

The idea is to get high schoolers involved in local government, and one of the challenges is that the students get busy with school and other activities and then, of course, the seniors graduate.

“You have to make sure you keep ninth and tenth graders involved, otherwise everyone graduates, and you lose your leadership,” Gerwig said.

The Wellington Youth Council program got underway in 2019 and was still in its infancy when COVID-19 arrived. Nevertheless, it has already accomplished some great things.

“What we really want to do is get ideas from the youth of the community, ideas about what they want for activities and learn the best ways to engage them in the village,” Gerwig said.

The program is run through Wellington’s Community Services Department.

“It is very important to get kids involved and working to lead their peers in active youth programs and initiatives, and the youth council is a great way to hear from our student population,” Community Services Department Assistant Director Michelle Garvey said.

The Wellington Youth Council is made up of 16 students, eight from Wellington High School and eight from Palm Beach Central High School.

The students are chosen by the student government associations and the leaders of each of the schools based upon an essay competition describing each nominees’ goals and ideas for the council.

The council has a mayor and vice mayor, and before COVID-19, the group held meetings in the Wellington council chambers. Over the past year, the meetings have been held remotely.

“Ian Williams works with the youth council,” Garvey said. “He’s such a dynamic individual, bringing energy to the team and our community, working with the kids to get involved.”

Williams is proud of what the group has accomplished in its first year, despite the difficulties created by the pandemic.

“The objective of the group is to give a voice to our youth in the community,” he said. “Wellington does an awesome job of hearing the voices of the adults, but we didn’t have a way of hearing the voices from the youth of our community. We need to hear from them about the things we can provide in the village that they are seeking. It was truly the mayor’s idea to bring a youth council to Wellington in 2019.”

While he is the program coordinator, Williams credits the students for its success.

“The council members are truly amazing,” he said. “There are some brilliant, talented individuals on it. Their efforts are why they earned the Municipal Youth Council Community Service Contest award.”

Hosted annually, this League of Cities competition showcases community service projects performed by youth councils that successfully address specific needs in their local communities.

The Wellington Youth Council won for its youth center project that was the group’s brainchild.

“They positively impacted the students in Wellington with this center, which provided a place in the Wellington Community Center where the kids can go and do homework, or gaming or just hang out with friends in a location that is comfortable and that they know is safe,” Williams said.

The youth center is currently on hiatus due to COVID-19, but there are plans for it to return once the emergency has passed.

Additionally, the group earned further recognition in the League of Cities’ Youth Council Photography Competition for an image of Wellington’s Patriot Memorial with the theme, “Why I Love Wellington.”

Both the community service award and the photography award will be presented to youth council members at an upcoming meeting of the Wellington Village Council.

“Since the inception of the youth council, we found they were truly concerned with mental health awareness,” Williams said. “The first-year group embarked on a mental health awareness program, and the second-year group set the objective of implementing it.”

They even held a dodgeball tournament, before COVID-19, as part of the program to promote mental health awareness.

“They have such creative ideas and are so up-to-date,” Williams said. “Some ideas seem out of this world, and yet are so realistic. Like using a dodgeball tournament to bring awareness to the topic of mental health. It was an amazing project with creativity and intelligence at such a relatively young age.”

Williams stressed the importance of the perspective offered by the youth council. “This year, we’ve been doing all the meetings virtually. It has been interesting, but it’s still working,” he said.

McKenzie Henry is a senior at Wellington High School. She got involved in the Wellington Youth Council after moving to the community from Broward County four years ago. In high school, she still knew few people and enjoyed the interaction and making new friends.

“When I first moved here, I didn’t have any friends, and interacting with everyone was the way of finding friends and not feeling lonely,” Henry said.

Her own experience led her to know how students can feel isolated. “I know that students can be depressed, especially now,” she said, adding that mental health awareness is all the more important during the pandemic. “Mental health is important for our generation, especially now with the quarantine and isolation, being home. Students feel less lonely with activities.”

Henry particularly enjoyed it when the group participated in a virtual murder mystery event with the youth council members playing many of the parts.

A junior at Palm Beach Central High School, Dailany Echeverria explained that she also feels that mental health awareness is of paramount importance.

“I absolutely love what I do on the council. I’m really passionate about it. I get so much from the community, and it feels so good to give back and be a part of it,” she said. “I want all students to be aware that the community cares about them and they are accepted, they belong here.”

Details and progress of the mental health awareness project will be presented at an upcoming meeting of the Wellington Village Council.

“We have a project that is targeted to the mental health awareness for our youth. This is a stressful time, and it helps them feel better,” said Echeverria, explaining that the program will give youth tips to feel better and teach them how to handle stressful situations.

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