The Minnesota Rural Electric Association Washington, D.C. Youth Tour n June 13 – 19 included a lot of learning, but also a lot of fun. Local attendees Brenna Hay (far left) and Aubry Lewis (far right) enjoyed getting to know the other participants over lunch at the Mount Vernon Inn.
Two Cook County High School juniors— Brenna Hay of Grand Marais and Aubry Lewis of Hovland—had an exciting adventure, thanks to their writing skills. The local teens submitted essays in the Arrowhead Electric Cooperative (AEC) essay contest and thanks to their writing skills, they were selected to take part in the Minnesota Rural Electric Association Washington, D.C. Youth Tour on June 13-19, 2014.
Going Back To Our Grassroots
Brenna’s essay was Going Back To Our Grassroots. She wrote about the importance of grassroots beginnings “…because it can be the basis of great things such as electric cooperatives, political parties, or rights advocates groups. For the North Shore, grassroots has been especially important for our electricity.
Brenna Hay
“…And we rely very dearly on the Arrowhead Electric Cooperative today, especially the young generation. Charging the latest touchscreen phone, the e-reader, and the laptop, heating the curling iron and the straightening iron, plugging in the coffeemaker and simply turning on the lights are all integral parts of a teenager’s day,” she wrote.
Brenna added that youths should be taught more about the grassroots history of electric cooperatives and the important part they still pay.
She wrote, “…That’s why the AEC is so important to us, even if we don’t realize it. To help us realize it, to encourage us to get involved, we have to know and understand what’s going on: where the electricity we use comes from, who gets it to us, how much our parents pay for the power, and more. We like to learn, even if we complain about it during math class, because we like to know. If we know, we have power through that knowledge.
Aubry Lewis
“To encourage young adults to get involved in ‘grassroots’ and resulting things like cooperatives, we must be educated about them. Knowledge is power, and both electrical power and knowledge based power can come to us from the grassroots based Arrowhead Electric Cooperative,” wrote Brenna.
Unity through Cooperation
Aubry’s essay was Unity through Cooperation. She spoke of how grassroots organizations can bring people together.
She wrote, “…In terms of electric cooperatives, grassroots are the dedicated people involved in the co-op that make their voices heard for the better of their community. These people can do something as simple as sign a petition, write a letter to their legislators, talk to their neighbors about issues, or even visit their elected officials and communicate the opinions and concerns of community members.
“Grassroots participants truly care about the good of the local people. These grassroots visionaries see the beneficial and influential effect that our present time decisions can have on our future. The whole process could be defined as neighbors helping neighbors. Cooperative supporters, even more than others, know the importance of taking care of each other. These members use the most powerful and efficient weapon that they have; their voices.
“We are all united by common values such as honesty, integrity, responsibility, and we all strive for the betterment of our own humanity. It’s how we function as people,” Aubry wrote.
She noted that Arrowhead Cooperative’s work with youth is a good example of its grassroots efforts.
“…Encouraging each other to get involved, whatever your age, should be important to us all as a whole. Arrowhead Electric Cooperative is a great example of this. Some instances are supplying grants to students who are in the need of financial aid for furthering their education, helping groups within our community with fiscal support who might not be able to achieve their success without them, and even being able to fund this yearly trip for youth to go and experience the heart and history of our government in Washington, D.C.”
Aubry summed up her essay by saying, “…After doing extensive research, I have come to the realization that many lives, including my own, are changed for the better because of the impact that grassroots and electric cooperatives make.”
The exciting trip
Brenna and Aubry joined 1,425 students from 43 states for a week at our nation’s Capitol. The tour included visits to the many memorials, including the Arlington National Cemetery, the Pentagon Memorial, the Vietnam, Korean and World War II monuments. They visited museums such as the National Museum of American History, the Holocaust Museum and the museum dedicated to free speech—the Newseum, as well as landmarks like the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial and Mount Vernon. And they spent a day on Capitol Hill meeting our senators and representatives.
Quite a reward for using the power of the pen to talk about grassroots power!
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