Local youth have global goals, dreams

Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of stories detailing the growing efforts of Design for Change Sandpoint as several local youth prepare to represent the United States at the DFC global summit in Rome in November.

By MARY MALONE

Staff writer

SANDPOINT — There is no age limit to finding your passion and changing the world.

It has been nearly three years since the local Design for Change program launched with a group of Washington Elementary sixth graders, who took on the task of raising awareness about suicide in the community and worldwide. The program has since expanded to include a number of efforts, including plastic reduction and recycling, food waste, hunger and poverty, and racism and discrimination among others.

DFC has gained so much momentum locally that sixth-grade teacher Ann Dickinson, who implemented the program at Washington, said they have initiated the process to become a nonprofit.

“It’s growing, and I think it has just been highly successful here,” Dickinson said. “It is such a good program.”

Nikki Luttmann is the president of the newly formed board for DFC Sandpoint, and said it is a “small but mighty” board with the goal of continuing the program not only at Washington and the other schools in the Lake Pend Oreille School District, but throughout the community.

“Whether it be church groups, or after school clubs … we are looking to continue this in Sandpoint and even make the program stronger,” Luttmann said.

It all circles back to that first group of DFC sixth graders who dubbed their project H.O.P.E. — Have Only Positive Expectations — with the motto of “Give people their 15 minutes.”

Evan Dickinson, who is heading to high school this year, was one of the nine sixth-grade students in the initial DFC group. The first thing they did, he said, was develop a think tank where the kids wrote all their ideas on sticky notes of issues in the community that could be addressed. While there were many ideas, from sportsmanship to bullying.

“We started researching and found out that a lot of those problems lead up to one big problem, and that is suicide,” Evan said. “

They also discovered there had been five suicides in the community in the two years prior to starting their project, and another shortly after.

Another group member, Breckin Nevarez, found a video of a woman who lost her son to suicide because of bullying and cyberbullying. Evan said the video was “very powerful,” and is where the motto of “Give people their 15 minutes” came from.

Evan and Breckin also attended a screening of “Resilience” at the Panida Theater, which taught them about toxic stress and childhood trauma. The definition of resilience, Evan said, is being able to bounce back from something, but it is not something people are born with. After learning this, the group decided to reach out to some of the younger kids in hopes of helping them gain resilience.

The group launched a YouTube channel exploring topics of resiliency and strength, created a “catching compliments” board at the school, became mentors to younger kids by spending one-on-one time with them, implemented school wide assemblies on hope and friendship, and implemented a “buddy bench” on the playground for anyone who was feeling sad or lonely during recess. The group also held two “random acts of kindness” challenges.

During one of the challenges, one of the Washington students was kind to a friend in high school who was having a hard time. She later received a message from the friend, who was in high school, and it turned out the teen was having suicidal thoughts, but the random act of kindness shown to her had made a difference.

For all of their efforts, and the passion they put into their project, the group was chosen to represent the United States at the DFC global summit in Spain in November 2017. Not only did they share their message with the world, Evan said they were really impressed with some of the other projects that kids had taken on worldwide. It gave him a wider perspective of problems and solutions that affect different countries, he said.

Some of the original H.O.P.E. group, along with some new members, have carried on their efforts by starting the 7B Love Project to address racism and discrimination in the community. That, however, is a story for another day.

In addition, the next group of Washington Elementary sixth-grade students who took on DFC for the 2017-2018 school year continued the efforts of H.O.P.E. by starting the #YouMatter movement.

In carrying on the efforts of suicide prevention, the group did a candy cane kindness challenge just before winter break, made a kindness chain to go around the school, and flew down to Boise to meet with legislators to talk about mental health issues in Idaho.

They also designed a #YouMatter clothing line. Jett Longanecker designed the logo for clothing, which included the words #YouMatter, with the M resembling a the image of a heartbeat on a heart rate monitor.

The #YouMatter group, along with the first second-grade class at Washington to do a DFC project — they took on intersection safety with several changes that have been implemented in front of the school since — were finalists for the 2018 global summit, though they were ultimately not chosen.

In the past, only one school from each country was chosen to bring one group of five students. This year, however, DFC is mixing it up and hosting a larger summit in Rome where the local youth will join more than 4,000 children from over 70 countries to present their projects in front of the largest Design for Change event in the organization’s history.

Approximately 20 students from six of the DFC projects, including the H.O.P.E. and #YouMatter groups will be attending the conference.

The other four groups include 7B Love, the Start Local Go Global plastic recycling group, the food waste reduction group, and the poverty and hunger group.

The H.O.P.E. and #YouMatter projects need community support in order to represent the United States at this year’s global summit. The kids are asking the medical community of Sandpoint if they would like to donate to help them reach their goal of $12,000. Donations are tax deductible through the nonprofit Walk For HOPE and can be mailed to Walk For HOPE, P.O. Box 2585, Sandpoint, Idaho, 83864. Checks should have “Design For Change Suicide Prevention” in the memo.

In addition, each group has a separate GoFundMe pages for people to choose which project they would like to support. The H.O.P.E. and #YouMatter suicide prevention groups have a combined effort at gofundme.com/f/design-for-change-suicide-prevention-project?member=2502316. Fundraisers, such as a rummage sale, will be coming up soon as well. Follow Design for Change Sandpoint on Facebook for project and fundraising information.

Stay tuned to learn more about the other four DFC projects and how their efforts have impacted the community.

Mary Malone can be reached by email at mmalone@bonnercountydailybee.com and follow her on Twitter @MaryDailyBee.