
On Friday, March 13, Minnesota Alliance With Youth, along with partners Ignite Afterschool, Youthprise, Minneapolis Youth Coordinating Board, Minnesota School-Age Care Alliance, and YWCA of Minneapolis held Youth Day at the Capitol 2015. 100 youth attended, with many young elementary and middle-school-aged students participating.
Youth leaders gathered just across the street from the Capitol at Christ Lutheran Church, where they prepped for their one-on-one meetings with legislators and the Minnesota Youth Council legislative meeting later that day. During the prep session, Sen. Kevin Dahle gave a great lesson in how to engage with and talk to legislators and become involved in the legislative process.
After the prep session, Minnesota Youth Council members walked over to the State Office Building for the Minnesota Youth Council Committee Meeting, where they heard testimony and voted on the passage of four different pieces of legislation. The bills tackled many important youth issues, including homelessness, service learning programming, afterschool funding, and the drinking age. The MYC voted unanimously to support the Homeless Youth Act (HF581, presented by Rep. Wills), SF1017 to fund afterschool programs (presented by Sen. Dahle) and HF394 proposing a service-learning grant program (presented by Rep. Freiberg). The council did not pass HFs485/486, bills presented
by Rep. Kahn concerning alcohol consumption by individuals under the age of 21.

Throughout YDAC 2015, youth from across the state used their voices to tell the community that young people value opportunities to advance education and provide avenues for all youth to succeed.