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Connie Howard Leach, Advisor for the Riverside Youth Council, is being honored for dedicating more than twenty years of her life to devising ways to empower youth and make adults understand the important role that youth play in the community. Ms. Howard Leach helped a group of her students convince a panel of juvenile justice and law enforcement professionals to create a Youth Court. At the Youth Court, some youth volunteers are trained to serve as jurors and others are mentored by attorneys to try cases judged by peer juries. After training to become a certified Public Access Producer, Ms. Howard Leach encouraged youth council members to start a Public Access program where they would produce, direct, and host the program. They would also operate the cameras, the lights, and the sound equipment. The first program produced was “Teen Scene Riverside.” “The 25 Most Interesting Teens in Riverside” is currently being produced to acknowledge the accomplishments of noteworthy youth. Recognizing that youth communicate and obtain information online, Ms. Howard Leach developed the proposal and obtained private sponsorship to create a separate web site for the Riverside Youth Council. Ms. Howard Leach created a Job Interview Curriculum for at-risk teens in which they are taught how to write resumes, search for jobs, prepare for interviews, and write follow-up letters. She worked with Youth Council members and high school government classes on a highly successful voter pledge and registration campaign, “Stand Up and Vote: Make Riverside Count!” High school students, though not old enough to vote themselves, canvassed the city registering new voters and obtaining pledges from registered voters that they would vote in the upcoming election. For the past three years, Ms. Howard Leach has organized the Multicultural Youth Festival, for the purpose of promoting nonviolence, tolerance of the differences between cultures, and appreciation of the benefits that different cultures and ethnicities bring to a city. In 2006, the festival, which has become a premier city event, received the California Park and Recreation Society’s “Award of Excellence” for Recreation and Community Service Programs. Over 500 teenagers volunteered to work at last year’s festival—there were 120 country booths hosted by youth volunteers, representing 105 countries.
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