YAC Advisory’s Travel to the Community Foundation for Northeast Michigan for Annual Meeting
The Community Foundation of Northeast Michigan were busy this week hosting the annual YAC Advisory Council Meeting on Monday.
Serving 9 counties, teachers and advisors from Posen, Alpena, Rogers City, Alcona and more met to discuss their upcoming plans for their programs that will allow students to come up with ideas of how to use their grant money to make an impact within their communities.
As a YAC Advisor for over 16 years, Jennifer Lee said it’s amazing to see what her students come up with in order to help out with youth related issues.
“It’s a blessing to work with (them) students because they do such a good job figuring out where the money should be best used. As they get older, and older you can see these skills that they can take with them to college, they can take with them through their entire life and hopefully they will be able to give as a person their whole entire life because they started out so young learning to give,” Lee said.
The top five issues include substance abuse, stress, pressure to succeed, bullying, mental health and education. Some of the grants used by the YAC Advisors and their students in the past have gone towards helping Iosco County ‘Coats for Kids,’ school back pack programs, and more.
“We give to a lot of school things, we give to school trips, we give to band instruments, and more. Our school got some microwaves because we needed them. We get a ton of things to give that really make an impact within our community,” Lee added.
The Youth Advisory Council is currently celebrating their 25th anniversary. The Community Foundation granted over $92,000 this year and over $1.8 million since the YAC program started back in 1993.
Besides hosting the annual YAC Advisor’s meeting, the Community Foundation is currently preparing for their social media training.
The two-day course will be encouraging non–profits to create more buzz with their organizations by using social media outlets.
“Last ‘Giving Tuesday’ one thing that we really noticed that our non profits needed is social media training. They told us they want it and it’s ‘something that this year we’re going to be requiring that they have a current and active Facebook page to be eligible and take part in ‘Giving Tuesday’ this year. So that kind of set us on this thing that we’re going to require it, then we need a social media training for our non profits,” Marketing Communication Director, Christine Hitch said.
The upcoming sessions will be held on August 30th and August 31st.
