What would you think of an organization which, in a year’s time, held blood drives, wrote letters to soldiers, participated in county cleanups, conducted toy drives for hospitalized children, collected food and supplies for animal shelters, read books to elementary students and sang to entertain people at a senior center?

Maybe you’d be surprised to know that the people with those helping hands are high school students. They are members of the Schuylkill County Youth Summit, a group that held a planning meeting Tuesday at the Salvation Army headquarters, Pottsville.

“Here are our assets, the students, right here,” said Schuylkill County Commissioner Gary Hess, a key organizer of the summit, along with Kay Jones, representing Schuylkill County VISION. “This is the start of the desire for volunteerism — learning to look for needs in your area and customize the response to what’s needed.”

“Schuylkill County has always made progress by reinventing itself,” Hess added. “It’s important to engage our youth — ask them, you tell us what should be done and how we should do it.”

Student members of the Youth Summit include 60-70 ambassadors from 16 county schools. The ambassadors also have a six-member executive committee (Maddy Yeager, Schuylkill Haven; Regina Edward, Schuylkill Technology Center; Fazain Ali, North Schuylkill; Aaron Deleon, Pottsville; Aidan Carr, Blue Mountain; and Olivia Lantzi, Tamaqua.

In addition to meeting to organize countywide initiatives, the students also organize individual projects in their schools. For example, the Tamaqua Area High School students’ project is called Raiders’ Nest. The students reach out to various school clubs for donations, and put together Easter baskets which instead of candy hold items such as coloring books and jump ropes, said Tamaqua Guidance Counselor Sabrina Gross, the adviser. Juniors Alexis Ziajka, Rebekah Hromyak and Jen Frederickson attended Tuesday’s meeting.

At Marian High School, students are reaching out to Kolbe Academy in Bethlehem. The Marian group is advised by Dean of Students Pete Sanfilippo.

“It’s a new school, helping students work on recovery based on faith,” said Marian senior Cara Lake, Barnesville. “We have plans to visit the school and have also been conducting drives to help them get supplies that they need.”

In addition to Lake, Marian students who attended Tuesday’s meeting included Maxwell Schwabe and Carolyn Mehallo, Hazle Township; Emily Shaud, Drums; Keith McCall, Summit Hill and Jace Whitaker, Hazleton.

Students from the Schuylkill Technology Center organize an annual cleanup contest, with a traveling trophy at stake. The trophy was constructed by students learning various trades at the school — copper piping from plumbing, wood supports by carpentry, light from electricians, metal from welders and paint from auto body. Gary Hess, the commissioner’s son, teaches history at the school and explained the cleanup challenge.

“Students involved with the Youth Summit get about 10 people from the school to do the cleanup, which is a certain day and during a certain time period,” Hess said. “They take pictures and take a short video (of the trash they’ve collected) and a winner is chosen.”

Hess said that the cleanup challenge is usually coordinated with the Schuylkill Keep It Pretty annual cleanup; a date has not yet been set. Currently the trophy is displayed at STC, last year’s winners.

During Tuesday’s meeting, members of the Youth Summit focused on creating a presentation about the dangers of opioid addiction. Members of the Youth Summit will be making that presentation to sixth-grade students in county schools.

About the summit

The summit’s mission statement is to engage, equip and support Schuylkill County youth to live well in Schuylkill County as successful adults and citizens.

Planning for a Youth Summit began in June 2012, with the support of the County Commissioners and Schuylkill County VISION. There are 16 high schools involved, including 11 public high schools, two Catholic high schools, two technical schools and a charter school. More than 4,000 surveys were collected from county high school students in December 2012 and analyzed, with the assistance of Penn State University, Schuylkill campus.

In the survey, students identified three areas of concern: Quality of Life, jobs and public safety. The first Youth Summit was held in March 2013 in Courtroom 1 of the Schuylkill County Court House. Planning summits and an annual summit have been held since then.

The website for the group can be found at www.skookyouth.com and is called Students That Care. The annual Youth Summit will be held April 11 at Penn State University, Schuylkill Campus.