Kill The Chill

Kill the Chill is a venture that was started up through the gracious funding of Starbucks in partnership with Youth Venture.  What was initially a dream project was made reality through this funding.  With our venture "Kill the Chill," the Evergreen Key Club hopes to provide the homeless with the lacking warmth and care; especially during January, February, and March-- months proceeding the holiday season where a lack of "the spirit of giving" often occurs. A second goal of our venture is to increase our student population's awareness to the issue of homelessness. What better way to do this, than to hand-make fleece scarves; a project which all volunteers can easily adhere to and will benefit the homeless population?  With this outline of what we wanted to achieve in mind, the club was able to hand make about 100 fleece scarves, which was all donated to the Union Gospel Mission.  The entire process of starting a project from mere dreams to making it a reality was definitely more challenging than ever imagined to be possible, but the success through the venture was also very amazing.  With the coming of a new winter, Kill the Chill hopes to set higher goals...and benefit a larger population of homeless people, one scarf at a time.

Dream It. Do It. World Tour - Bringing A Face To Youth-Led Social Change

It all began as part of a lower middle class family growing up Southern California. After high school I took an amazing scholarship opportunity at American University and moved east to Washington, DC. In my sophomore year, I launched a not-for-profit organization - Operation Outreach - that worked to bridge the gap between underserved youth and the college and university environment, hoping to help other kids get out of the situation I had been in during my own childhood. The program brought several hundred university students to Washington, DC's lowest performing schools on a twice-weekly basis, working on reading, writing and math while also offering a mentor who could talk with the kids one-on-one about their own lives, aspirations and dreams for the future. Then, each year, the entire second and third grade classes would visit American University for a day of seminars in their interest areas, as well as offer time to meet with athletes and professors and eat in the dining hall. Now, five years later the teachers have noted a marked difference in the attitudes and performance of their students. I graduated from American University in May of 2006 and decided to take my skills international. After seven months in Shanghai, China developing mentorship programs and English curriculum in schools set up specifically to serve the marginalized youth of migrant workers, I proposed and received funding for a 4-month, 5-conitnent, 11-country world tour aimed at meeting with, documenting and highlighting the incredible work of young people around the world, building an enormous collection of "proof" that there was indeed a global movement taking shape by and for powerful young people who were defying stereotypes and defining themselves as the most influential generation in history. I was tired of listening to the criticisms of generations past while newspapers splashed stories of would-be celebrities on the cover, labeling them as symbols of who I supposedly was. This led to anger, acknowledging that the problems facing young people were not created by my peers but instead inherited from older generations who were now passing blame and assigning labels to a group of youth they hardly understood. I believe that it's time for my generation to speak for themselves, rather than listen to pundits speak for us. After returning from the World Tour I took that same message across the United States, traveling to 33 states in 33 days to meet with and tell the stories of young Americans just like me who are part of this global movement. Young people are powerful now, creating change the world over not just because they want to, but because they have to. I continue to work on reshaping the perceptions of my generation through writing, photography and filmography. I am currently producing mini documentaries and writing a book that documents my findings.

Empowering and Engaging Youth through Social Entrepreneurship

As an organization Youth Venture inspires and invests in young people to have the transformative experience of launching and leading their own community benefiting clubs, organizations or businesses.  Since I joined Youth Venture in January 2007 I have had the pleasure of working with young people in the Pacific Northwest, California and Canada.  I am constantly amazed at the creativity and innovation young people implore to address needs they see within their communities.   Youth Venture offers coaching, resources and up to $1,000 in seed funding to help teams get started but ulitmately as an organization our focus goes well beyond these things.  Our goal is to continue to build a global movement of young changemakers and create a cultural shift in the youth years so that young people are recognized for the work they are doing to improve their communities. 

Entrepreneurship has always been a passion of mine but Youth Venture's mission appealed to me so greatly due to the fact that it adds in the social component while working to instill this value of being a changemaker in young people so that they take action throughout their lives.  I look forward to seeing Youth Venture's presence grow throughout the Seattle area and around the globe in the years to come. 

Join the movement!  Dream It. Do It.