Every spring for the past five years, the California association of PALs, (CalPAL) converges on Sacramento to host a teen leadership program called the Sacramento Experience. The Berkeley Boosters PAL has participated from the beginning. CalPAL has over 115 local chapter members, and each is eligible to send up to four young people to attend this training, from their Youth Director’s Council (YDC).
The YDC is a program of PAL that offers young people the opportunity to develop leadership skills, to provide community service, and to offer their voice to the Board of Directors as an advisory group on youth program matters. They are trained in Robert’s Rules of Order, Public Speaking, Teamwork, Community Organizing, and Fundraising. Our Berkeley Boosters / PAL YDC has been very busy this past year engaged in all of those areas: we have participated in shoreline cleanup days, provided volunteer help at the City of Berkeley’s Bicycle Safety Rodeo, served as older teen role models on Boosters outdoor trips, begun a mural, completed a canned food drive, assisted with our Turkey Basket Distribution at Christmas and Thanksgiving and MUCH MORE!
The Berkeley Boosters PAL actually got to send FIVE youth to Sacramento this year, because our Past President of our local YDC (Katryna Shattuck) had actually been elected to the California State Board of YDC, and attended in that capacity.
Nalui Garcia (our current YDC President), her brother Andy, Reynisha Franklin and Malcolm Jackson all went to represent Berkeley.
While in Sacramento, the young people got to learn valuable civic lessons on how our government is run, heard motivational speakers that encouraged them to take the things they were learning back to their local communities to make a difference, received training in how to speak to and present requests to their legislators, and of course also some sightseeing and recreation.
We toured Old Sacramento, enjoyed a river-boat cruise down the Sacramento River (complete with a live DJ and dance), and visited the local mall (a trip the kids INSISTED on!).
We toured the Capitol building and learned all kinds of interesting historical facts, such as the fact that Berkeley was once considered as a possible location of our State Capitol!
We also attended a large CalPAL rally on the steps of the Capitol. Our YDC members got the chance to meet with our State Legislators – the Honorable Loni Hancock, State Assemblymember from District 14, and the Honorable Don Perata, State Senator from District 9.
BPD Officer Alan Pagle spent a day with our kids and really got a chance to speak with them about a wide range of topics – from how much his bullet-proof vest weighs and what it is made of, to why he became an officer, to the kind of cheese he liked on his nachos! Officer Pagle made a really important impact on our kids when he stopped to share the Peace Officer Memorial directly outside of the State Supreme Court. He showed our young people the names of the two Berkeley Officers who were killed in the line of duty, and it really made our kids stop and think about the chances our officers take on a daily basis.
The kids then got a really rare and special treat. We had left the larger CalPAL group (since we had some time before the rally started) to go over to see the Memorial and Supreme Court Building, and decided to see if we could go in to see the court. We explained to the guard who we were, and they allowed us to go in and observe the last 10 minutes of closing arguments of a Supreme Court case! Nalui, our YDC President, who had already formed ideas about becoming an attorney, was even more convinced that was the path she wanted to take!
The Sacramento Experience was a life-changing experience for our kids. They developed a lasting bond with one of Berkeley’s finest (thank you again for your support, Officer Pagle!), came back to Berkeley with excitement and ideas about how they can be better leaders and serve our community in more meaningful ways, and engaged with their legislators and learned how to present their ideas.
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