Photo: 2024-25 Saline Youth Council
A new Saline Youth Council was sworn in at the October 8, 2024, City Council meeting. Composed of high school students, the council meets monthly during the school year. After setting their goals, the members collaborate to determine how best to achieve them.
“The idea was to provide a commission that would be able to report to city council and provide feedback to council through the voice of the youth,” said Staff Representative Sunshine Lambert. “They are kind of the experts in what the youth find important.”
The members of the Saline Youth Council are:
- Dylan Erickson (chair)
- Alice Jiang (chair)
- Gabriella Burtell (vice chair)
- Solina Lin (secretary)
- Selah Salenta (treasurer)
- Caleb Ciechanowski
- Elizabeth Finnegan
- William Maloy
- Ryan Pletz
- Alisha Sachdeva
- Ari Veloso
- Saydee Walton
- Avery Winfree
- Staff Representative: Sunshine Lambert
Attendance expectations were reviewed as well as possible service projects and volunteer opportunities. Topics discussed included having two initiatives/ideas every month, and plans were brought forth on how to create better communication with other members, including creating a calendar to help organize service projects, communicating with other members of the council through GroupMe, and having a social media presence.
A Google Classroom will also be created to ensure that Lambert retains access even after the Youth City Council members graduate. Lambert suggested having teams of two or three for every event, while advertisements for these events could be spread through high school newsletters. The Student Youth Council also hopes to use the app, Innerview, to log hours for these volunteer events.
Additional service project ideas included making tie blankets for Mott’s Children’s Hospital as a team-building activity while helping a good cause and organizing a fundraiser/hygiene drive through the club, Her Voice, with the hope of advertising to receive donations. A book drive was brought into consideration, and library pop-ups around Saline were restocked for the spring.