Sometimes, in the name of teaching youth citizenship building skills, the mayor has to volunteer to get all wet.
Case in point.
Former Grand Marais Mayor Sue Hakes brought four Cook County I.S.D. 166 high school students with her to the May 10 Grand Marais City Council meeting. The students, said Hakes, are part of the new Cook County YMCA Youth for Government, “which technically will start in the fall, but we are here to introduce ourselves to you,” she said.
That short introduction should have been Grand Marais Mayor Jay Arrowsmith DeCoux’s first warning.
Youth for Government (YFG) has about 25,000 students between 7th to 12th grades nationwide, said Hakes. In Minnesota, there are about 1,800 middle school and high school students who participate in YFG each year.
“We have 15 students who have shown interest so far,” Hakes added.
The problem might be for those students to find time for the program. Hakes pointed out that between homework, sports, and jobs, all of the kids were very busy and the program is student led, student directed.
YMCA Youth in Government emphasizes the Y’s four core values of caring, honesty, respect, and responsibility. Goals include helping kids learn to make a difference in their communities, acquire citizenship skills, mold character, and develop a strong focus on leadership development and citizenship building.
One reason for the early start said Hakes, was so the group could start fundraising. There is a yearly conference held in the Twin Cities in the winter that costs money to attend, and Hakes said she would like to see that anyone who wants to participate in that conference, could visit it.
Which brought Tristen Bockovich to the forefront of the meeting. The sophomore said the Cook County YFG would like to sponsor a dunk tank at Fisherman’s Picnic, and he wondered if the mayor wouldn’t mind being the one sitting at the end of the board over a tank filled with water.
“I would love to be dunked,” said Arrowsmith-DeCoux. “I’ve done it the last couple of years. It was breezy, and the water was cold.”
Hakes said the group was off to a good start. One of the members had written a grant and received $1,000. Councilor Tim Kennedy encouraged the kids to come to meetings or to watch on the live stream to learn how government works. He noted that the public works garage, which is now being built, was being talked about even before Sue Hakes was mayor of Grand Marais. “Some things take a long time to get done,” he said.
Linnea Gesch, Harleigh Lindquist, and Ryan Cox also attended the meeting, as did Heidi Doo-Kirk, who is also an advisor to the group.
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