HANCOCK COUNTY — As the school year recently came to a close, so too ended the year for Y-GIVE, the youth board facilitated by the Community Foundation of Hancock County.
The youth board consists of 16 high school students in any given school year, including four students of various grades from each of the county’s public high schools.
Y-GIVE stands for youth giving, investing, volunteering and engaging.
The group meets monthly while school’s in session to serve the community in a number of ways. This year’s projects included trimming trees and bushes at Beckenholdt Park and serving at local nursing and retirement homes.
The members also donated $1,000 to Greenfield Head Start and successfully sought a $500 grant for Regreening Greenfield.
Before school let out this year, they met one final time to share lunch and reflect back on all they’d learned throughout the year.
The community foundation’s president, Mary Gibble, said the Y-GIVE board was first formed in 2011 and has been teaching young people the value of community service ever since.
“We really did that with the intent of engaging youth in philanthropy and teaching them what philanthropy means,” she said.
The youth board is also designed to instill a collective sense of place for Hancock County high school students.
“We recognized that many youth just really didn’t have a sense that they lived in Hancock County, and Hancock County is a pretty fantastic place,” said Gibble.
“This group is all about contributing to the community and making it a better place, but you have to know your home before you’re going to make it a better place,” she said.
In addition to community service, the youth board also helps with the community foundation’s effort to supply the county’s elementary schools with booklets containing coloring sheets, crossword puzzles and trivia about what makes Hancock County such a special place to live.
Janet White, the recently retired education officer for the Community Foundation of Hancock County, said leading the Y-GIVE board was one of her most cherished memories in serving the foundation the past six years.
“It’s all about giving them the opportunity to learn about giving, to learn about the county, and to learn ways they can give back to their county. Hopefully they will come back after going off to whatever college or work that they choose to do, and will start giving of their time and their treasure,” she said.
“Wherever they land, they will have had an experience that instilled in them the values that Y-GIVE teaches, and that is really to give of yourself and invest in your community,” added Gibble. “We teach the best practices on how to do that — getting engaged and making your community the best place it can be.”
Y-GIVE marked the end of another successful year and will resume at the start of the next school year, when a new crop of students will join the current students on the board.
Last year’s board members included: Maddi Bowman; Tucker Brown; Jackson Clark; Moses Haynes; Josie Kinnaman; Griffin Lawrence; Aaron Lee; Kaitlyn Lowes; Vivian Miller; Saydie Miller; Maya Morales; Misha Patel; Luke Shelton; Isabella Sotelo; Tyler Tharp and Christian Whisman.
Graduating seniors included: Lawrence of Eastern Hancock High School; Lee of Greenfield-Central High School; Patel and Shelton of Mt. Vernon High School; and Miller of New Palestine High School.
Shelley Swift is a journalist working for the Daily Reporter.
