The Growing Up Boulder initiative is bringing together Boulder's adults and youth to work on three main areas: public art, a business survey, and a teen nightlife initiative. Action groups for each of these focus areas were designed based on the interests that youth expressed at the Growing Up Boulder Kickoff Celebration in October 2009.
In the public art action group, middle school youth and members of the arts community are coming together to create public art in Boulder. As a first step, each middle school will create and contribute a banner to be displayed in a traveling exhibit throughout the city. The exhibit will promote Growing Up Boulder (GUB) and encourage more youth to get involved in future GUB art projects.
Several high school students are working with a professor and PhD student at CU to design a business survey. The survey will investigate what jobs are available to high school youth in Boulder, and eventually lead to a public database that catalogs these jobs. In addition, the youth plan to research which Boulder businesses are youth-friendly and share this information with the larger community.
Finally, a group of teens is researching nightlife options in Boulder. The teens are creating a questionnaire for their peers to determine what safe nightlife activities currently exist in Boulder and what new ones they would like to see. Based on the results of the survey, the nightlife action group will work to implement the most popular suggestions.
The action groups are supported by a larger steering committee made up of Boulder non-profits, city and county organizations, community leaders, university members, and youth. We are working to recruit more of the business community to this initiative as well. Through the strong partnerships, we hope to support youth in their efforts to make change in each of the focus areas.