Kids’ Good Choices Deserve Attention

With less than a week left in which to nominate deserving Spokane County youngsters for this year’s Chase Youth Awards, recommendations have been flowing into City Hall at, well, a trickle.

In this, the 13th year of the recognition program, the Chase Youth Commission set a modest goal of attracting nominations on behalf of 800 kids. That’s less than 1 percent of the county’s 85,000 youngsters in kindergarten through high school.

By mid-afternoon on Friday, however, the total number of nominations received was creeping toward a scant 20. And that, after some energetic tree-shaking on the part of program supporters.

Such slack interest seems a little strange, even mystifying, in a community that values its young people. Not that the deafening silence comes as a complete surprise. Last year, too, public response to the commission’s plea for nominations was lackluster.

What’s going on? Have we run out of kids who deserve to be honored for their citizenship, community service, courage, creativity, respect for diversity, leadership or personal achievement?

Or is it just that the adults in their lives care too little to fill out the simple nominating form that gets the process started?

Actually, neither explanation is plausible.

More likely the awards program is merely a victim of its own success. The honor is so respected among those who know something about it that many teachers, parents, neighbors and other community members get nervous at the thought of nominating anyone who falls below the rank of superhuman. Sure, they see children and teens engaging in commendable behavior that warrants recognition, but a Chase Youth Award?

Joanne Benham, director of youth services for the city and county of Spokane, thinks that concern could be exactly what’s behind the reluctance. Community members who are personally impressed by a youth aren’t sure that boy or girl would measure up as a Chase Youth Award winner.

“They don’t have to save the world,” Benham says of potential nominees.

They certainly don’t have to be the top scholars, the best jocks, the most talented performers, the cream of student leadership.

In fact, that’s one of the values of the awards program. Normally, youth grab public attention either by excelling in a select few paths that the community has chosen to value - or by getting into trouble. Fall somewhere in between and you’re invisible.

For the past 13 years, though, the Chase Youth Awards program has been shining a spotlight on that broader band of kids who make the best use of whatever assets they possess.

At the core of the program’s philosophy is an awareness that all kids have the capacity for positive behavior, even if it isn’t apparent in every aspect of their lives, and that it exists in many forms. An effective way to cultivate more of the same, and less of the other, is to reward young folks’ good choices with favorable attention.

One of last year’s winners was a grade school student with attention deficit disorder. A neighbor nominated him after noticing that he was helping other residents by carrying their groceries. He even volunteered to clean up a vacant lot. He was putting his energy to good use, and the neighborhood was better off for his efforts.

“He did something positive for his community,” says Benham.

And his community honored him with a Chase Youth Award.

However, she suspects more adults aren’t calling public attention to that kind of youth contribution because they don’t think the nominee they have in mind would be impressive enough to win.

The truth is every child who is nominated is a winner. Every nominee is invited to the community-wide awards presentation at the Spokane Opera House on March 28. Every nominee receives a certificate. Every nominee’s positive efforts are publicly acknowledged.

Every nominated youngster goes away from the experience knowing the feeling of being valued by the community for using his or her talents constructively.

“We don’t want the emphasis to be on winning,” says Benham. “We work really hard to honor every kid that walks in the door.”

There is still time for community members to make sure that the kids they’ve seen and admired can share in that recognition. The deadline for submitting nominations is this Friday.

Forms are available at City Hall, at libraries and youth centers or on line at www.spokanecity.org/ youthlink. And getting more information is as easy as calling the city-county youth department at 625-6054.