What Works

By Brandon Bryn, NCPC Staff

Project Change Going Strong

Olney, MD, is about 10 miles north of the nation’s capital and a 40-minute drive from Baltimore, MD.  It’s a pleasant place to live, but it’s known more for its middle-class neighborhoods and its rolling hills than its nightlife.  

For those of us who grew up in Olney, things were often painfully boring. Living our formative teenage years in a town whose landscape was marked by endless fast food restaurants, banks, and strip malls, the town’s youth sought entertainment in other nearby urban neighborhoods.  For those who remained in Olney without a driver’s license or access to a vehicle, the nightly and weekend pastimes consisted mostly of drinking, smoking pot, vandalism, and stealing from local grocery stores. Worse yet, the ones who were lucky enough to drive out of town for the evening often returned after a night of drinking, driving drunk back into suburbia. 

This was enough to inspire a group of teenagers to demand change in their hometown. In 1998, along with high school friends Anthony DeCicco, Katie Yee, and Mandy Woodfield, I helped create a small community organization whose purpose was to draw more teen-oriented businesses to the area and create opportunities for youth. Project Change was born.

At the time, all four of us were active members in a larger, national organization called the National Organizations for Youth Safety (NOYS), and we had the privilege to attend national meetings as youth representatives and advocate for teenagers across the nation. The thing that was amazing about those NOYS meetings was the fact that every meeting was centered on the youth in the room. At each meeting, teens and young adults from nearly every state in the country came together to identify common problems and to offer possible solutions. The adults in the room all remained very quiet. It was ideal.

At one particular NOYS meeting, the youth in the room were challenged to participate in a project in which we were to travel back to our respective communities and use the leadership skills we had learned at the NOYS meetings to create some sort of social change. The only stipulations of the project were that it had to be community-based and it had to address issues related to the health and safety of the youth within the community.  Heading back to Olney, my friends and I realized that it was time to take back our hometown from the sleepy businesses that closed each night at 9:00 p.m. and do something about the utter lack of teen-friendly services.  We believed that we should at least have a place in town to call our own, where youth could congregate and have fun in a safe environment, rather than submit to the boredom and, perhaps, take part in potentially dangerous activities.

When word spread across Olney that a group of motivated teens were determined to establish a teen center in town, people were excited to help us out. The head of the local hospital’s Teen Addiction Center immediately offered us office space to hold weekly meetings. Various businesses donated their goods and services.  Parents and other concerned teenagers from the area were also quick to volunteer their expertise and contacts. And, although some talkative parents were sometimes politely reminded that the youth were in charge, the teenagers ran every aspect of the operation.  Soon, we were contacting local newspapers and the news about Project Change spread.

While we pressed local business owners and legislators for a teen center, Project Change concentrated on other short-term goals. The organization planned and executed dances, pool parties, concerts, deejay competitions, and other community gatherings that were always attended by hundreds of youth, desperate for something to do. We developed a logo and created a website. We made T-shirts and won awards and raised our profile even further. At every community-organized event, Project Change was there, represented by teenagers who continued to rally more and more support.  Finally, our organization was offered office space in the center of town for six months.  However, those plans eventually fell through due to funding and problems with the facility’s site. Still, we pushed forward. 

Over the years, the project expanded and evolved.  I have long since left my hometown of Olney, attended college, and now have a professional career in Washington, DC.  But ten years later, Project Change is still going strong, and has adapted to take on an entirely new set of issues concerning local teens.  Most recently, I learned that the current youth involved with Project Change developed and implemented a peer education project aimed at bullying prevention, titled “You Have the Power!”, which was featured locally on the news and nationally on a PBS program. I continue to be impressed by the great leaps that youth can make when they set their minds on a goal, and we should never forget the tremendous power that the voice of youth can wield.

I happened to drive through Olney recently, and noticed that a huge, beautiful skate park had been built on a previously empty lot. Immediately, there was no doubt in my mind that Project Change had something to do with its construction. I only wish that it had been around when I was young, bored, and skating around town just looking for something to do.

For more information, check out the Project Change website, www.projectchange.info and the National Organizations for Youth Safety website, www.noys.org.