Youth-2-Youth Summit in the works

By Cali Doran

BELLEVILLE – The Youth-2-Youth Summit is coming to this area to encourage youth leadership.

There will be a workshop, keynote speaker and other activities that will cover topics such as mental health, gender equality and social media.

Youth-2-Youth will take place on Friday, Sept. 29, at the Tyendinaga Township Recreation Hall. The aim is to connect young people from Hastings, Prince Edward and Lennox and Addington counties as well as Belleville and Quinte West.

The headliner for the summit is Ryan Porter, a motivational speaker, author and founder of the website raiseyourflag.com. His mission is to help young people answer the question “What do I want to do with my life?”

Tori Buck, a graduate of Loyalist College, helped organize the event. She explained that the organizers interviewed young people before putting it together.

Their goal is to have 12o young people at the summit, but they’ve already exceeded that.

“We sold out really fast. [Ticket sales were] open for five days before the event sold out,” said Buck.

The event now has an anticipated attendance of 150.

“It means a lot knowing that it is going to be about the youth,” she said. “I think a lot of the time we don’t focus on what the youth want or need.”

“I always like to see that my own community is growing and getting better with different supports,” she said.