The Youth Leadership Council or YLC was formed earlier this year in an effort to better include the dancers and be a liaison between the staff and the students. As the mandates continued to roll out due to the Pandemic, the students ran into challenges of how to stay involved and create fun yet socially distant events and games for the PBD students to interact with. They have become incredibly creative and have created a Thanksgiving Bingo and a podcast that anyone can listen to on Spotify! In past years, they have planned Halloween costume balls, concert after-parties, The Sweetheart Ball, and two years ago the buddy system for the spring concert.
Eve Eugenio, one of the YLC members says they have lots of ideas and lots of exciting things in store for the rest of the year. “As far as goals go, right now we would be planning our lovely sweetheart ball, and maybe even spirit week. We haven’t been able to discuss our ideas as frequently with each other since the second quarantine hit, but I know, that we all have a lot of ideas, and once we get together again we will have lots of exciting things in store.”
Being in the YLC has many perks says Eugenio, “The reason I wanted to be in YLC, is because it lets me plan things that I know the kids here would like, I get to get to know kids from other teams that I would otherwise probably not talk to and we can blurt out crazy ideas and they might just happen. It’s just great here!” If you are a PBD youth dancer that has an idea of activities or things that you would like to see happen at the studio, make sure to contact your YLC representative so that you also can have a say.
PBD families and students can be supportive and more involved in YLC by listening to the podcast on Spotify, coming up with team activities and suggestions, etc. ” Kids should feel free to share any ideas they have with us” reminds Eve. Carlie Sterling, Youth Premier team member, and YLC member says, “PBD students and families can be more involved in the YLC by heading over to our Instagram page @pbdylc, where we will be posting interactive content and updates about the YLC and activities they can participate in.”
The Youth Leadership Council chose to postpone their Spotify podcast for the time being so that they could set a good example for the other students and socially distance, but you can listen to their two recent podcasts by going to https://open.spotify.com/show/2fBsrWQGMg3S7O7GKKbgk6.