2022 Youth Program Wrap-Up

Final Day

The final day of the Youth Program, Emerging Leaders, was centered on how students can use their freshly acquired knowledge to serve their community. In other words, this day was dedicated to how Leadership Rochester has shaped these students into changemakers. Tamara Mayberry, Chief of Staff for the City of Rochester and graduate of the Program, spoke of how Leadership Rochester prepared her for the important work she now is a part of. By building knowledge of the Rochester community, LR has consistently been the impetus for change within the community, and this was what Tamara Mayberry spoke to. 

The Class

The 2022 Emerging Leaders class consisted of students from various and diverse backgrounds. Leadership Rochester is proud of its connection to local school districts. The class of 2022 featured several students from Penfield, several from the Rochester City School District, and a few from Brighton. Other school districts are represented as well, but what this truly embodies is cooperation. Cooperation across district lines, cooperation to shape each other into changemakers, and cooperation for a Better Rochester. The Emerging Leaders program is merely a space for these already brilliant change makers to become more brilliant through cooperation. 

Takeaways

From the opening retreat, with its focus on developing a personal voice, to etiquette lessons, to training on “being their own boss,” to deep diving into policy-making, these Emerging Leaders discovered their path to making change happen; and most importantly, they built a community in the process. At the core of cooperation and change, there is community, and through discussion with Rochester’s trailblazers, ROC’s new Emerging Leaders discovered, even wading through the horrors of the past few years, how hope is possible. 

These students were already brilliant, but what they carry now is the knowledge to support the change they are destined for; and now, as well, they move Forward Together. 

Send-Off