More than 300 teens invaded Morgan Hill
’s Community and Cultural Center on Saturday for the 2004 Youth
Advisory Commission Conference.
More than 300 teens invaded Morgan Hill’s Community and Cultural Center on Saturday for the 2004 Youth Advisory Commission Conference.
Students ranging in age fromn 13 to 18 descended from throughout the Bay Area, and beyond, to participate in the YAC Attack. According to event organizer and Morgan Hill YAC adviser Chiquy Schoenduve, 42 organizations from 34 cities participated in the daylong event.
YAC was a collaborative effort between four cities, hosted by Morgan Hill with help from recreation departments in Gilroy, San Jose and Santa Clara, to bring students together to meet and exchange ideas.
“This was a great way for us to get to know ourselves and allow us to help and be helped by others,” said Jake Rouse, 16, of Burlingame. “This helped us to plan affective programs for our community.”
The conference offered different workshops for the students to attend that were geared to planning ideas, life skills, leadership and debating current issues.
“I was excited because we were able to bring more than 300 youths together,” Schoenduve said. “It was a great time. The youths were able to get to know each other and get to know these new facilities.”
YAC Attack began at 9 a.m. when students were provided with breakfast and were introduced to each other. From there they went on to three workshops that lasted 40 minutes each.
Most of the workshops were facilitated by the students, including the debates.
After the workshops, the youths were provided with lunch and entertainment, including a race to see who could clear a course of different tasks the fastest that ended with their advisers being wrapped in toilet paper.
During lunch, the students were encouraged to get paper signed by representatives from the different groups that could put them in the running for different prizes.
After lunch, the teens participated in different debates that ranged from gay marriage to racial tension to relations between teens and the police.
Overall, the event met with positive responses from those who participated. Students were able to interact with others that they might not otherwise have a chance to meet.
“It was great to network with people that I might not otherwise get to interact with,” said Lily Tavassoli, 17, from Evergreen YAC in San Jose. “There was a lot of opportunity to exchange ideas and gather information.”
The sentiment was shared by Terence Hofstad, 15, one of 11 members of the Gilroy Teen Advisory Board, who said he was able to get different ideas that he could use in his city.
Christopher England, 17, of Morgan Hill, said that the event this year was better than those he had been to in the past, though he said there could have been improvements in the programs offered.
“This is a lot nicer area and better weather than in other places,” he said. “They could have offered different stuff. Some of the meetings seemed pointless and the keynote speaker was not very good.”
The event was coordinated by the Morgan Hill Recreation Department.
