Pitching Social Change at Roseville High School

Four teams of Roseville High School students are scheduled to face off today (Tuesday) in an entreneurship competition that will grant the winners up to $1,000 in start-up funds to help implement their plan for improving the school and community. 

The pilot program at Roseville High School is being supported by the Greater Twin Cities United Way and Ashoka’s Youth Venture. The purpose of the program is to encourage and support students in their quest for their school to become a “changemaker” school, according to officials at Youth Venture and the Greater Twin Cities United Way.

The four Roseville High teams competing are:

• Food Shelf Venture , which is working to start a pantry at Roseville High School to provide food and toiletries to students and their families.
• Courtyard Venture, which is planning to rebuild the deck, install a peace pole, and use native plants to make the school’s courtyard a living classroom accessible to students, teachers and staff.
• Homecoming Traditions Venture, which wants to create positive new homecoming traditions to reduce incidents of bullying and create an inclusive school culture.
• Moon Walk Venture, a new initiative of the Earth Group, is planning a fun evening walk fundraiser to increase community awareness of simple steps to be green while raising funds to improve the sustainability of the school.

A panel of community members will be judging each team's proposal and the competition is slated to go from 3 to 5 p.m. today.

The goal of the Ashoka's Youth Venture initiative is to assist young people who believe they can help create positive community change, according to officials with the program.  The noted that nearly 74 percent of young people surveyed by the Search Institute believe they can make a difference. The challenge lies in helping them believe that their energy can be used to improve society right now.

Ashoka said it developed the Youth Venture concept from the experiences and insights of its more than 3,000 social entrepreneurs selected as Fellows. Standout Ashoka Fellows include: Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales; Grameen Bank founder Muhammad Yunu and Teach for America founder Wendy Kopp.

Ashoka’s Youth Venture operates in 18 countries. Information on its local efforts can be found at http://usa.ashoka.org/twincities.