Friday Night Live: What’s Your SPARC!?
On Thursday, April 15th area youth gathered at the Cabrillo Pavilion Arts Center for an evening planned by teens for teens to reduce underage drinking in our community! The evening was titled SPARC! What’s Yours?!? With SPARC standing for Students Pursuing Alternative Recreation in our Community. This was an inspiring evening to hear our local youth express what motivates them and what in our community helps them on their path.
A number of local organizations joined together for this youth led town hall full of self discovery, group dialogue, and community interaction. There was even live entertainment, free food, awesome raffle prizes, and an ice cream social!!
Thank you to Jeremy Bates of Revolution Speak, the amazing facilitator for the evening, and Mayor Helene Schneider for coming out!
The evening started off with a presentation from Martial Arts Family Fitness and then easily segued into Jeremy leading the youth through a variety of activities and thought provoking questions.
Youth had the chance to express themselves in small groups as well as to the larger group. Overall the evening was a great insight into the lives of youth in Santa Barbara and the variety of good work that local agencies are doing to help stop underage drinking and drug use, as well as areas that we can move forward into.
For more pictures of the event click HERE.
This event was planned by youth from Coalition of Youth Advocates (COYA), Friday Night Live, Future Leaders of America, Isla Vista Teen Center, Santa Barbara Youth Council, and Quasars to Sea Stars.
Supporting agencies are the City of Santa Barbara, Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, County of Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara County Public Health Department, Santa Barbara’s Fighting Back, Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History & Ty Warner Sea Center, and the Santa Barbara Teen Coalition.