By Amy Meuers, NYLC CEO
Reflecting on this past year at the National Youth Leadership Council, I’m filled with hope. Not the passive kind of hope that waits for things to improve, but the active, energized hope that comes from witnessing young people transform their communities and tackle some of the most pressing challenges of our time.
This year, NYLC’s Youth as Solutions teams engaged more than 15,500 young people in service initiatives that positively impacted nearly 35,000 community members across the country. But behind those numbers are stories that truly matter: students addressing educational equity in their schools, teens making their roads safer through peer education, young people championing community health, fighting for environmental justice, and strengthening our democracy through civic engagement. These weren’t adult-designed programs where young people simply volunteered. These were initiatives imagined, planned, and executed by young leaders who saw problems in their communities and refused to wait for someone else to solve them.
I think about the Youth Advisory Council members who guided our organization’s work this year, ensuring that youth voice and leadership remain at the heart of everything we do. They didn’t just advise, they led. They challenged us. They pushed us to be better. They made decisions alongside our staff as equal partners, proving what we’ve always known: when young people are treated as capable, creative, and critical contributors, remarkable things happen. Their voices shaped our strategic direction, influenced our programming, and reminded us daily that authentic youth leadership means sharing power, not just creating opportunities.
At NYLC, we’ve always believed that service-learning is more than just a teaching strategy. It’s a transformative approach that engages students in solving real-world problems through academic learning and meaningful community service, with youth voice and leadership at its core. This year proved that belief in ways that continue to inspire me. We provided tailored training and professional development to nearly 3,000 educators, equipping them with the skills and tools to implement high-quality service-learning programs where young people don’t just participate, they lead. These efforts didn’t stop at classroom doors, they indirectly reached nearly 500,000 individuals, creating a ripple effect of youth leadership and community engagement that extends far beyond what we could measure.
In partnership with the Afterschool State Networks, we expanded our global impact across Massachusetts, Missouri, Nebraska, and New Mexico, indirectly influencing more than 160,000 young people. Each of them gained skills, discovered their voice, and learned that they don’t have to wait until they’re older to make a difference. They learned that their perspectives matter, their experiences give them authority, and their leadership is needed right now.
We also launched something I’m particularly excited about: a three-year research initiative called Service-Learning in Civic Education, in partnership with Sanders Communication and the University of Minnesota. Recent studies show that only one in four Americans aged 18 to 39 consistently support democracy. That statistic keeps me up at night. But this research will help us understand how service-learning, grounded in youth voice and leadership, can strengthen civic education and nurture the democratic engagement we so desperately need. When young people experience genuine leadership opportunities where their voices shape decisions and drive change, they develop the skills, values, and commitment essential to democratic society.
Our 36th Annual National Service-Learning Conference® brought the NYLC community together in powerful ways. More than 400 youth and adult attendees from 36 states and seven countries gathered for over 100 dynamic learning opportunities. What struck me most wasn’t just the sessions we offered, but watching youth and adults learn alongside each other as equals, with young people presenting workshops, leading discussions, and sharing their expertise with the same authority as veteran educators. The energy in those rooms reminded me why I do this work. When you create spaces where youth voice is amplified and youth leadership is celebrated, magic happens. Throughout the year, our additional convenings brought together 845 youth and adult attendees from around the globe, creating connections and youth-adult partnerships that will fuel change long into the future.
I’ve spent considerable time this year hosting “The Power of Young People” podcast, and it’s become one of my favorite parts of my role. Sitting down with young changemakers, hearing their stories, understanding their motivations—it’s a privilege. This year, we reached more than 2,200 episode plays, sparking meaningful conversations about what’s possible when we truly believe in young people’s capacity to lead. From Milan Varma tackling food insecurity in Philadelphia to Nora Sun breaking down language barriers in mental health care, from environmental champions removing tons of trash from our rivers to students creating peer support systems for safer driving—these young people demonstrate what youth leadership looks like in action. They identified problems others overlooked. They built solutions others deemed impossible. They persisted when adults doubted. And they proved that youth voice isn’t just important, it’s essential.
As I look toward the coming year, I see both challenge and opportunity. We face significant societal issues, from democratic backsliding to educational inequity, from environmental crisis to mental health challenges. But here’s what I know: young people are uniquely equipped to address these challenges, starting in their own communities. They bring fresh perspectives, moral clarity, lived experience, and the understanding that the world they’re fighting for is the one they’ll inherit. What they need from us is not permission, but partnership. They need adults who will share power, create space, and trust them to lead.
The future of leadership truly starts here. It starts with educators who recognize that students want their voices heard and their leadership valued. It starts with communities that create authentic youth-adult partnerships where young people are equal partners in decision-making, not tokens at the table. It starts with organizations like NYLC that recognize and affirm the limitless potential of youth voice and leadership.
This year showed us what’s possible when we move beyond youth engagement to genuine youth leadership. Young people don’t just participate in service-learning, they design it, lead it, and transform it. They don’t just voice concerns, they develop sophisticated solutions and drive implementation. They don’t just hope for a better future, they actively create it through integrity, empathy, collaboration, and civic responsibility.
As we move into a new year, NYLC is committed to expanding these opportunities, reaching more young people, supporting more educators in elevating youth voice, and continuing to build the youth-adult partnerships that make transformative change possible. I’m excited to see us deepen our research on how youth leadership strengthens democracy, amplify youth voices even further, and continue learning from the young leaders who inspire our work.
To the educators reading this: thank you for recognizing that youth voice and leadership transform both communities and students. To the young people: thank you for your courage, creativity, and commitment to making our world more just. Your voice matters. Your leadership is essential. You don’t need permission to change the world. You need partners who will support you, resources that will amplify you, and spaces where you can lead authentically.
To our partners, supporters, and the entire NYLC community: thank you for believing that the future of leadership is not some distant tomorrow, it’s happening right now, led by young people whose voices deserve to be heard and whose leadership must be supported.
Let’s carry this momentum forward. Let’s continue creating spaces where every young person can engage in social action and be recognized as essential to civic society. Let’s keep building authentic youth-adult partnerships where power is shared and youth voice drives decisions. Let’s keep equipping young people with the skills, values, and opportunities to lead with purpose.
The future of leadership starts here. And it starts with youth voice, youth leadership, and all of us working together as partners in creating the world we need.
