It was August of 2020, and my freshman year of high school had finally arrived. After spending all of elementary and middle school at the same school with the same kids in the same building, I was more than ready to move to a new environment. I had been eagerly looking forward to the high school experience I had always envisioned– football games and pep rallies and getting involved– for years. But unfortunately for me, the entire world had come to a screeching halt in the spring of my eighth grade year with the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and nothing had been the same since. We were living in a new America; divided, hurting, and unsure of the path forward.
When I found out that my first year of high school would be taking place half virtually, I was devastated. As an extrovert who thrives off of socializing and making connections with my peers in and out of the classroom, school suddenly seemed a lot less appealing. One warm summer day, I was hanging out with a friend– socially distanced and masked, of course– and we were commiserating about the times we were living in. We weren’t clear on the details, but we knew we wanted to do something. Something to bring cathartic conversations such as this one to the table, something to connect youth in a time when connection was so precious and scarce. After a few hours of discussion, we decided on forming a group made up of young people focused on having an open dialogue surrounding the world we were living in and the part we played in it. Our name would be Generation Activism– an ode to connecting with peers and making a difference.
A rogue idea born on my back porch turned into a group with five members. Then ten members. Then nearly forty. We began live-streaming our meetings so that parents and friends could tune in, but in no time at all, the view counts were rising and our conversations were attracting the attention of our wider community. The idea of guest speakers was introduced, and soon we were having regular Q&A episodes with community leaders shared with the public online. With participants such as the first transgender elected official in the country
(Sarah Mcbride), emergency room physicians on the frontlines of the pandemic, and nonprofit founders, we discussed everything from social media to social justice, from grief to gender equality. Our members brought a wide range of ages (thirteen through eighteen) and perspectives: Kate had been through the loss of her twin sister. Mal had Cystic Fibrosis. Shaun was nonbinary. Jack had successfully initiated a statewide ban on single-use plastic grocery bags. Our meetings were a rare and sacred space; we laughed, cried, and learned in every episode. Even though many of us had very little in common, we connected. Person to person; American to American; friend to friend.
Eventually, as the COVID cases declined and we began to get back to our real lives, it became unrealistic to continue our episodes on a regular basis. We drew the Generation Activism series to a close after a year of hard work in which we produced eighteen episodes. Our hopeful idea from that summer afternoon turned into a passion project that would bring light to our community in the midst of so much darkness. All it took was a change of mindset. The moment we decided to see our isolation as an opportunity instead of a constraint, everything changed.
Though Generation Activism only lasted for a chapter of my life, I will never forget the lesson I learned: when you find yourself in the midst of a problem with no solution, create one. Take the first step. Most often you will find that if you reach out a hand, someone will take it.