Courtesy Photo Youth Advisory Council students tour the Besser Museum’s “Discover Northeast Michigan” exhibit which they helped support through some of their grants.

ALPENA — This Friday, Youth Advisory Councils (YAC) from across nine Northeast Michigan counties will be gathering for their first conference in six years at Alpena Community College.

YAC uses funding from the Kellogg Youth Endowment, a fund held by the Community Foundation for Northeast Michigan (CFNEM), to support local community projects and opportunities through grants. YAC is a youth-led group and a program of CFNEM strengthening students ages 12 through 21 in four key pillars: grantmaking, leadership, community service, and philanthropy.

“What they’re aiming to do is to learn about the impact that philanthropy makes on the community, and they do that primarily through the grant making process,” Christine Hitch, director of development and marketing at CFNEM, said. “They learn by doing community service activities that are either aligning with some of their grant making or with these needs assessments.”

One of the opportunities students have for leadership is becoming a voting member of the board of trustees at the community foundation. A student starts out as a trustee elect to learn the ropes before taking over the role of a voting trustee once the student previously holding that position leaves.

The nine counties students will be coming from for the conference are Alcona, Alpena, Cheboygan, Crawford, Iosco, Montmorency, Ogemaw, Oscoda and Presque Isle.

The conference is typically held every three years, but COVID and other factors put a pause on making the conference happen, Jennifer Dingman, program director at CFNEM, said.

The three year cycle aligns with the youth needs assessment that YAC and CFNEM puts out every three years to determine the issues affecting youth. A total of 358 students were surveyed in the four counties of CFNEM–Alpena, Alcona, Montmorency, and Presque Isle–in the 2025-2027 assessment, finding that the number one issue for students is depression and mental health. Three other assessments were done for the branches of CFNEM, including the Iosco, North Central Michigan, and Straits Area Community Foundations, that yielded similar results, with depression and mental health being listed as a top three issue in all assessments conducted.

The goal of the conference is for YACs in all nine counties to collaborate and find solutions together.

“So that’s the big, overall, arching idea is that we are trying to get all the students to collaborate with each other because some of their needs are the same or very similar,” Dingman said. “So we feel that if they are able to network with each other and learn from each other with what everyone is doing in the different areas, then maybe as a combined whole the efforts will be greater across our Northeast Michigan region.”

There are YACs in each school district, with each YAC having anywhere from 12 to 20 members, Dingman said. She anticipates that around 130 youth will gather for the conference on Friday.

At the conference, YACs will participate in a mock grant review session to learn the ins and outs of choosing applicants to receive grants, Hitch said. They will also learn how to communicate with potential donors to their endowment fund about YAC, and personalize their story through a storytelling session.

Dingman is excited to see the students meet each other, and hopes for a lot of laughter and ‘aha’ moments.

She believes that YAC will have a lasting impact on students and their communities.

“We’re hoping that it’s an everlasting impact, and that no matter where they go, they kind of have this philanthropy idea in their head…so we have five T’s…how they can use their time, their talent, their treasure, their ties, and their testimony to help their communities,” Dingman said.