As global youth services day approaches, the impact factory prepares

By Laurel Klafehn

The Denver Youth Advisory Board, recently the self-proclaimed "Impact Factory" is a group of 13 students from the greater Front Range area, from 10 to 17 years old. This group, which was established as a facet of the Young Philanthropists Foundation (www.ypfoundation.org) in the fall of 2009, is now nearing the end of its second year. The group meets once a month to address societal issues that the students feel are most important and necessitate the most change. To convey this message, the students created a clever acronym and slogan:

Impact Factory (IF):

IF...you bring together the leaders of tomorrow;

IF...you give them the knowledge and tools;

IF...you empower them to believe they can make a difference;

THEN...together we can change the world

The goal of the group every year is to focus on one specific topic and design a service project to perform on Global Youth Services Day to help address said issue. Last year, the group decided that the environment was at the top of their priority list (specifically recycling and composting) and, throughout the year, partnered with Growing Gardens (www.growinggardens.org) in Boulder to design a project centered around the topic. They learned all about the process of composting and plant cultivation, and eventually performed their service project on Global Youth Service Day, last April in Boulder. 

This year, as Global Youth Service Day approaches (April 15-17, 2011) the group is making final preparations to their planned project. In the fall, they decided that they wanted to address the issue of homelessness in Denver. In order to help address the issue in ways that they felt would be most beneficial to the recipients, they specifically decided to focus on youth homelessness. They are partnering with Urban Peak, an organization in Denver which specifically focuses on helping homeless youth, and will be performing a number of different projects during their Day of Service, including cooking breakfast for the 35 youth staying at the shelter, collecting new clothing, such as men's undershirts and boxers, and small toiletry items, and helping clean up the shelter and surrounding areas through a Beautification and deep cleaning project. More information about Urban Peak, including their mission and programs can be found here: urbanpeak.org. This year's project, they hope, with the help of Urban Peak, will spread the word about the important issue of youth homelessness, and organize more of their contemporaries to fight for the cause.

Stay tuned as the members of the Impact Factory post updates regarding our project creation and Global Youth Service Day outcomes! If you are interested in getting involved, please visit: www.ypfoundation.org and download an application.