Just like the RYC, teens all over the nation are turning things around in their own communities. Check out some of the programs by and for young people.

Adopt a Tree , Stanwood, Washington
In 2001, 7th grader Max Winderbaum founded a organization out of concern about the deforestation in his town (Stanwood, Washington, north of Seattle) due to urban sprawl. Adopt-a-Tree gives trees to responsible caretakers to plant and care for so that Stanwood can replenish and maintain its forests.

ArtsCorpsLA , Los Angeles, CA
An eight-year-old public art collective that creates community art projects and places on vacant lots in inner-city Los Angeles. Main project is La Culebra, a 2-acre art garden/youth center, but there are several others. Winner of a Bruner Award for Urban Excellence.

Chicago Youth Programs, Inc. , Chicago, IL
A nonprofit, volunteer organization that sponsors tutoring programs, health fairs, youth video projects, educational skits and other offerings.

CityVision , Washington, DC
The National Building Museum's flagship youth education program introduces many students to urban issues and design. Students work in small groups with volunteer professionals and university students to identify a problem in the community around their school and design a built-environment solution to the problem. The Museum has established long-term partnerships with five DC public schools in under-served communities.

Clean and Green , Los Angeles, CA
A program run by the Los Angeles Conservation Corps in which young adult corpsmembers supervise crews of middle school students on community beautification projects after school, on weekends, and during school holidays (which occur year-round thanks to year-round operation of schools in LA).

Community Film Workshop of Chicago, Chicago, IL
The Media Arts and New Technologies Project focuses on every facet of production and business development. The project teaches computer and digital skills to youth ages 11-17 from some of Chicago's most troubled neighborhoods. Students create video diaries, narratives, and documentaries that are presented at an annual youth and community forum. As a group, youth design and implement a small business venture and produce work that addresses a pressing community or school problem.

Cornerstones Community Partnerships
Cornerstones Community Partnerships, a Santa Fe-based non-profit organization, works primarily with rural Hispanic villages and Indian Pueblos in New Mexico and the southwest to restore historic structures. It encourages traditional building techniques and works to retain cultural heritage and foster civic pride through historic preservation. Cornerstones responds to requests for assistance in the preservation of vernacular adobe buildings (many of which are churches), organizes hands-on workdays, and implements youth training programs.

CorpsLink program ,  Bozeman, MT
A program of the Montana Conservation Corps' in which court-referred or adjudicated youth fulfill community service and restitution requirements through community conservation projects. MCC provides young adult supervisors and coordination for this program.

Design Apprenticeship Program , Washington, D.C.
Another National Building Museum program that enables local youth to design and build projects with volunteer professionals and university students. A 2001 project focused on creating public benches for installation along sidewalks; the youth designers aimed to meet critieria for comfort and visual appeal, while also protecting nearby trees and providing bicycle parking. reated to provide hands-on opportunities for youth in a variety of media. Projects are designed to fit into a few sessions (3 - 9), and result in a built product.

The Duimdrop Project , Rotterdam, the Netherlands
A Duimdrop is a transformed ship container full of toys. At lunchtime, after school, on Saturdays, and on all school holidays, the toys are lent to children aged 4-14. Arrangements may be made with older children. Toys can be borrowed to play with in the square with a 'Duimdrop Pass', which children receive free on enlisting. The square is supervised by a Duimdrop caretaker who plays with the children, monitors unwanted behavior and checks the toys

Earth Conservation Corps , Washington DC
12 year old nonprofit that that provides at-risk youth in DC opportunities to work on environmental projects focused primarily on the Anacostia River: clean-ups of the river and surrounding environment, educational programs, a center at a converted riverside power plant, and involvement in meetings on the Anacostia Waterfront Initiative (a major river revitalization project).

East New York Farms, Brooklyn, NY
Teenagers help community gardeners grow and sell produce at a farmers market in East New York, a neighborhood in Brooklyn. (613 New Lots Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11207; 718-649-7979)

Endor Community Garden Bronx, NY
Planted in 2000 by students from four local high schools and maintained by neighbors, the Endor Community Garden is sponsored by the Riverdale Community Association. Winner of 2001 National Gardening Association Award. ( 253rd St. and Fieldston Road Bronx, NY 10471; Hilary Kitasei 718-549-0830; Hilary@kitasei.com )

The Food Project, Lincoln, MA
The Food Project brings together youth and adults to grow organic vegetables that are donated to homeless shelters and sold at urban farmers' markets and to families in suburban Boston. Youth workers and volunteers farm on 21 acres of land in rural Lincoln and on urban Boston land that they have transformed from vacant lots into lush, city farms. The Food Project is a place where people from all backgrounds join together to work for more livable communities.

Gallery 37, Chicago, IL
Gallery 37, an internationally recognized program for youth and pioneer in the field of cultural education, offers Chicago area youths job training in the arts, opportunities for arts-related employment, and mentoring relationships with professional artists. The young apprentice artists at Gallery 37 receive training in visual, literary, media, and performing arts as they work on public art projects, produce commissioned artwork, and generate the merchandise to be sold in Gallery 37's retail store.

Groundswell Community Mural Project , New York, NY
Groundswell Community Mural Project is a unique not-for-profit Brooklyn based organization that combines personal expression and community activism. The purpose of Groundswell's community murals is to organize and facilitate the mural making projects designed and painted by underrepresented groups with a special focus on youth. 

Investigating Where We Live , Washington, D.C.
The National Building Museum's summer program in which students work with volunteer professionals and university students to photo-document two local neighborhoods, then design and build a Museum exhibit based on their photos. Everyone gets a free 35mm camera and film at the end of the program. Students first learn to get to know the communities and to take pictures, and then learn about exhibit design and fabrication.

Junior Earth Team/J.E.T. Teens , Chicago, IL
Teens provide environmentally based activities to children at five city parks in ethnically diverse neighborhoods - learn more about this program from the Innovative Programs Database at Urban Parks Online.

KIDS F.A.C.E., Nashville, TN
The mission of Kids for A Clean Environment is to provide information on environmental issues to children, to encourage and facilitate youth's involvement with effective environmental action and to recognize those efforts that improve nature.

Los Angeles Conservation Corps, Los Angeles, CA
"To serve and uplift the diverse communities of Los Angeles and conserve the natural and human environment by providing young people with an opportunity for: developing educational and work skills to advance their own personal and career opportunities; creating stronger ties to their communities through community involvement and service; exploring avenues for personal growth and development in a respectful and nurturing environment and developing leadership skills to contribute to the advancement of all people."

New Urban Arts, Providence, RI
New Urban Arts, a non-profit arts organization founded in 1997 by Providence youth, is a nurturing community that believes the arts can transform lives. We seek to empower and promote young people as artists and leaders through arts mentoring, civic engagement, and social reflection. At New Urban Arts youth use the arts to imagine and create new possibilities for themselves and their communities. New Urban Arts collaborates with people from different backgrounds who may or may not think of themselves as artists and provides them with avenues to express who they are and who they might become. In all of our work, New Urban Arts emphasizes convening diverse groups and individuals to support youth in describing the change they want to see in the world.

NYC Urban Park Rangers , New York, NY
An after-school conservation program where kids go out with teams to do restoration and reintroduction of species in parks. The Urban Rangers also collaborate with a summer employment program, Parks Conversation Corps, in which youth tackle a variety of environmental issues, from erosion to damaged trails to wetland and forest restoration.

Project Outdoor Learning Environment, San Fransisco, CA
At the San Francisco Community School the children *led* a community design process for their schoolyard, and participated in the various stages of upkeep, gardening, etc. Features so far include a community garden, butterfly garden, construction zone (playground with fixed and moveable parts that let kids create new playspaces), and a very cool sand lab, where fossils are built into the walls of a giant sandbox and students act as archaeologists.  (San Francisco Community School;
125 Excelsior Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94112; 415-469-4739)

River Rangers , Providence, RI
After training, the Rangers (aged 14-18) provide weekly summer programming in neighborhood parks along the Woonasquatucket River Greenway, and work with the program coordinator to design these programs. Learn more about this program from the Innovative Programs Database at Urban Parks Online.

Rocking the Boat , New York, NY
During the process of building a traditional wooden boat, Rocking the Boat students learn to create something that is not only beautiful, but really works allowing them to access natural places in their own city that many never knew existed. Frequent explorations throughout New York City and its environs on land and water, as well as environmental action projects, complement work in the boat shop, giving young people the opportunity to gain a deeper awareness and relationship to the natural resources that lie in the land and rivers around them.

Rocky Mountain Youth Corps, Taos, NM
Rocky Mountain Youth Corps involves Anglo, Native American, and Hispanic youths to work together on service-learning projects that focus on cultural and environmental preservation as well as public health and safety.

Southend Community Services, Hartford, CT
SCS is a not-for-profit agency founded in 1974. Our mission is to better the quality of life for our community by helping others help themselves. We promote understanding, solidarity and cohesion within our multiethnic and diverse community. We are committed to the well being of the business community, recognizing the positive impact a healthy, thriving marketplace has on the quality of life for Hartford residents. SCS has five service areas of operation: Childcare, Youth Development & Employment, Elderly Services, Adult Employment and Job Training and Economic Development. The Our Piece of the Pie program (OPP), is a youth business incubator that offers a rich mix of work and entrepreneurial experiences, all designed to enrich and reinforce school-based learning. At present, OPP is supporting six youth businesses including an employment company, an art company, a boat building company and three food related businesses.

Totally Cool, Totally Art , Austin, Texas
Established in 1995, this program sends teams of local artists to work with groups of teenagers in recreation centers. Semi-annual exhibitions turn gymnasiums into galleries (300-400 people attend the shows). The program also includes field trips, events (such as a movie-theater screening for works created in a video class); and an outdoor event that featured a steam-roller as a printing press.

Tree Musketeers, El Segundo, CA
Tree Musketeers was the nation's first known nonprofit actually administered by kids with support from adult partners. Tree Musketeers empower young people to lead environmental improvement in Earth's communities through innovative action and education programs that motivate others to become partners in a united youth movement. At Tree Musketeers, youth learn the business and personal skills required to lead environmental actions, and then teach others.

Urban Solutions, New Haven, CT
Urban Solutions, Inc. is dedicated to strengthening urban neighborhoods and creating access to employment.

The Village of Arts & Humanities , Philadelphia, PA
The Village is actually a neighborhood revitalization efforts that has transformed over 150 parcels of debris-filled vacant land into parks and community gardens in a breathtakingly poor and blighted neighborhood of North Philadelphia. Teens are trained and employed in various production processes as part of the Village's crafts-industries program, including a vegetable farm, a tree farm that supplies the city parks department, youth theater, computer workshops, and special outings and events Â- with "rites of passage" and "coming of age" ceremonies. 

Youth Venture , Washington, D.C.
Youth Venture empowers young people to create and launch their own enterprises, and through these enterprises, to take greater responsibility for their lives and communities. The group is part of a growing global liberation movement of young people who are committed to making a positive difference and playing an instrumental role in the welfare of their communities.

 

Credit to PPS for this information.