Thousands Of Students To Gather At Yakima Valley Sundome

More than 2,000 students from 19 of south central Washington’s school districts are expected to unite at the Yakima SunDome on Monday, Jan. 14, for a unique, hour-long convocation focusing on citizenship, civic engagement, and youth involvement in local and global volunteer efforts.

The “Youth Community Connection Assembly” at the SunDome will start at 10 a.m. The one-hour event is being presented for invited students from area 6th-12th grade classes. School districts planning to take part include Cle Elum-Roslyn, East Valley, Goldendale, Grandview, Granger, Highland, Mabton, Mt. Adams, Naches Valley, Prosser, Selah, Sunnyside, Thorp, Toppenish, Union Gap, Wapato, West Valley, Yakima, and Zillah.

The program’s guest speaker will be Molly Burke, a teen from Oakville, Ontario, who was diagnosed at age 4 with retinitis pigmentosa, a retinal disease causing loss of vision. Relating from her own experiences, Burke will address the students about becoming active in their school and community to overcome teen challenges such as bullying or illness and learning how to work together to make a positive difference on issues of concern to kids.

Burke will tie her message of youth empowerment into the activities of “Free The Children”, an international charity and educational organization based in Canada. Free The Children works to encourage young people to make a positive change for youths in impoverished countries around the world through awareness and fundraising activities, such as economic assistance programs and school development projects. Free The Children and its founder, Craig Kielburger (who was 12 when he started the organization in 1995), were profiled on the Nov. 25 broadcast of “60 Minutes.”

“Our area’s kids have never been together like this in this type of setting,” said Grandview superintendent Kevin Chase, who is helping organize the local event.

Burke will also tell students about Free The Children’s “We Day” event coming to Seattle’s Key Arena on March 27. The Seattle event will feature former Soviet Union president Mikhail Gorbachev and other speakers who will address an expected crowd of 15,000 young people on the ability of youths to take action on issues they care about. Students from south central Washington schools will have the opportunity to attend the Seattle event by committing to becoming involved in a local and a global community improvement project.

Supt. Chase added: “I think it is a very important part of all young people’s education and lives to become engaged and active citizens. Celebrating the power of young people to create change and empowering them to take action on issues they care about most is at the heart of the We Day initiative from Free The Children.”