Elementary students form council
June 25, 2009
By Laura Geggel
Once a month, a handful of elementary students spend an afternoon at Si View Community Center, formulating their goals for the Snoqualmie Valley Elementary Youth Council.
The council is a spin-off of the Snoqualmie Valley Youth Council for middle and high school students. At first, the elementary students attended the youth council, but found they had little connection to the issues of drug prevention the older students discussed at meetings.
Instead, the elementary students formed a youth council of their own. At a recent meeting, a group of six students from across the district met with advisor Ryan Daly, the youth and athletic coordinator at the Si View Metropolitan Park District.
At the previous meeting, the group had painted two recycling containers. Daly placed them at Si View, and confidently told them middle-school students had filled the boxes to the brim at a recent teen night.
“Two months ago, (those bottles) would have been in the trash,” Daly said.
Satisfied with their last project, the students launched forward with their next.
The task at hand? Planning a booth for the Festival at Mount Si.
Continuing with their green theme, the students pitched several ideas promoting recycling at the festival. Opstad Elementary fifth-grader Chayla Brewster asked her teammates what they thought about organizing a craft table using recycled materials. The others jumped on board, saying they could collect bottle caps for necklaces, find boxes and rubber bands to make guitar-like instruments, put rocks in empty water bottles to create maracas and maybe even compose a song about recycling using their recycled musical instruments.
Snoqualmie Elementary school 10-year-old Marcus Johnson volunteered another idea. They could host a recycling race, seeing which festival participants could recycle bottles and papers into the right receptacle the fastest.
“You know what,” Daly said. “My grandpa needs this game because he has no idea what goes where. And you know who gets to sort it?”
“You?” Johnson asked.
“Well, my dad,” Daly said. “But still.”
Giggling, the students brainstormed more about their festival ambitions. Brewster said she enjoyed the meetings and the council’s projects.
“It’s where elementary youth can come together and decide how they want their voice to be heard in the local area,” Brewster said.
A few parents attend the meetings, but they came to support, not to take over the council. Instead, the students lead the meetings and take them in whatever direction they choose, building their leadership skills and making a few friends in the process.
“I like to come, because we talk about stuff to help the world, and I’ve always wanted to help the world,” Snoqualmie Elementary student Aaron Thompson said.
Daly encouraged other youth to join the free council at its next meeting at Si View, 400 S.E. Orchard Dr., North Bend at 5 p.m. July 1. To learn more, call Daly at 831-1900.
“It’s as much as you want to put in,” Daly said. “If you want to help once a month doing a project, or even once a year, that’s great.”
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