Youth

The Slingshot Challenge is a partnership with National Geographic Society that invites youth aged 13-18 from the U.S. and Mexico to apply their ingenuity to tackle environmental issues in five areas: clean the air, restore the ocean, protect nature, reduce waste, and address climate change. Currently in its third year, the finalists have each received $10,000 in funding to further their ideas and further support, mentoring, and judging are provided by National Geographic Explorers and Young Explorers.

In this partnership, we support the Pride Foundation’s youth initiative program to provide unrestricted support for 19 nonprofits that primarily serve LGBTQ+ youth and to support growth capacity and movement building within and across the organizations. This work will strengthen local LGBTQ+ organizations’ ability to provide youth programming, engagement, and outreach across Washington.

The Rhizome Civic Service Fellowship Washington State Pilot is a three-year project to establish a statewide network of Rhizome Chapters, connecting 128 teams of Civic Service Fellows across Washington State. The Rhizome network model seeks to encourage young individuals to perceive and engage in civic service as a lifelong commitment, over time, this will give young people more influence to solve the problems that are most proximate to them and those they care about. The Washington State Pilot will become a catalyst toward achieving Rhizome’s long-term goal of making hyperlocal, student-led chapters accessible to emerging leaders in all 27,155 high schools in the U.S. by 2034. 

The Family First Community Center (FFCC) is a new state-of-the-art facility located in the heart of the Benson Hill/Cascade neighborhoods of Renton that prides itself on being the first community center in Washington offering free community-driven program opportunities, developed by direct community input, and services for youth and families as well as an on-site health clinic. The robust partnership model engages both the City of Renton and the Renton School District, and the FFCC serves as a replicable model for how other cities can develop community-led spaces and services.

The Setting Sun Institute’s Tribal Youth Leadership Program is working to develop the next generation of Indigenous leaders and simultaneously respond to the ongoing opioid crisis in the Lummi Nation and Tribal communities through a diverse, but connected, programming effort. Our funding supports the creation of an Indigenous-led think tank to share Indigenous knowledge, wisdom, and culture through multi-tribal gatherings, evolving and refining their existing Tribal Youth Leadership Program to develop the next generation of culture-bearers, and to support the tribal crisis response to the opioid epidemic.