On Wednesday, Youth MOVE National opened a virtual stage for our annual Rockstar Awards. Last year was the first time the Rockstar Awards were presented in a virtual space, but last year challenged us to get creative in how to honor youth advocates, supportive adult allies, and organizations working towards enhancing and making youth-serving systems better.
Youth MOVE National presents the Rockstar Awards to people and organizations who have made an outstanding contribution toward the improvement of youth or youth-serving systems—like mental health, juvenile justice, education, and child welfare.
We honored Rockstars on our virtual stage (http://www.twitch.tv/youthmovenational), and had over 50 audience members cheering them on. We heard stories of resiliency and advocacy from the introductory speakers and the Rockstars themselves. The chat room truly was a RAVE as peers, supporters, and strangers alike cheered for these amazing advocates on screen. We felt truly inspired by the stories and the speeches gave us chills.
A big shoutout to the Rockstar Awards Committee who read so many amazing stories and had the difficult decision in choosing the awardees! Thank you to Paige Martin, Gabriella Diaz, Felicity Krueger, and Brittany O’Neil.
Over the last month, we have been raising money to help continue the work that Youth MOVE National does through technical assistance, organizational readiness for youth engagement, supporting our chapter network, programs like the Youth Advocate Leadership Academy, and a variety of committee opportunities we offer to youth (to name a few). We use these funds to hire youth consultants to advise on certain projects, engage in research & policy efforts, and hire directly in opportunities such as paid internships.
This campaign also helps to directly support the Rockstar Awards.
There is still time to help sponsor all of the amazing work by checking out our Rockstar Fundraiser:
RAVE 2021 was sponsored by our incredible donor, Change Matrix. Be on the lookout for highlights of this organization in later blogs, but know that they are making it possible for Youth MOVE to create programs and opportunities for Rockstars and other youth advocates!
During the show, Cloe Wilder shared her story with us as well as sang her song, In The Next Life, which gave us all goosebumps!
If you missed the show, don’t fret. We have uploaded RAVE 2021 to our YouTube channel and can watch it here:
Keep your eyes open on the Youth MOVE blog! Starting next week, we will be featuring Rockstars and their incredible work.
2021 RAVE Winners
