Tulsa Technology Center

The Student Council of Tulsa Technology Center, through the influence of the President's Summit for America's Future, convened a student summit in which 55 class leaders from the school discussed community issues and devised a plan to implement programs to benefit young people. The center adopted a local elementary school with a high amount of at-risk students and approached the students as a group of individual classes. Each Tulsa Tech class adopted a Briarglen Elementary class for one-to-one mentoring. The volunteers participate in several activities, including mentoring and tutoring, developing marketable skills, providing a safe after-school place, meeting nutritional needs, and offering service through community projects.

Tulsa Tech students were encouraged to seek opportunities for one-to-one relationships with Briarglen students. The students realized that by utilizing the five goals of the President's Summit as guides for an action plan, they could reach their goal of community involvement to the next generation. Each of the five goals was addressed in the program. The enthusiasm that the students gained carried over to the elementary school students and staff at Briarglen. More than 1,000 students and staff from Tulsa Tech participate in the project.

In providing successful educational partnerships, the students of Tulsa Tech encouraged other student bodies in the area to become more involved in their communities. To deliver this message, they formed a student leader group called "High 5" Ambassadors, who contacted the National Association of Student Councils. The Ambassadors addressed the National Conference in June of 1997 and connected with student leaders from all over the country. They passed out flyers of the Summit Declaration and its goals, and initiated banner "sign-on" signatures, which indicated, on a banner two miles long, the individual commitment of student leaders to serve in their communities. Nine "High 5" Ambassadors and 16 volunteers working on producing the banner have spent a combined 1,488 hours on the project.

The Ambassadors have traveled to a number of conferences across the country and are the motivating force to get hundreds of other schools to participate in The Presidents' Student Summits. The Student Summits are part of a three-year project in which student council presidents and youth leaders convene local summits to connect and mobilize youth through service to their communities.

The two mile banner with thousands of student signatures will be displayed at a ceremony in Washington D.C. on National Youth Service Day, April 21, to symbolize the youth commitment to America's future.