{"id":11894,"date":"2015-09-16T07:52:54","date_gmt":"2015-09-16T11:52:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=11894"},"modified":"2015-09-23T09:20:19","modified_gmt":"2015-09-23T13:20:19","slug":"youth-volunteer-fair-is-part-of-wider-vision-for-aurora","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/youth-volunteer-fair-is-part-of-wider-vision-for-aurora\/","title":{"rendered":"Youth Volunteer Fair is part of wider vision for Aurora"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

School is back in session, and with the start of the year, comes the rush of local students looking to fulfil their need for community volunteer hours. <\/p>\n

If you\u2019re one of these teens struggling to find a good fit, you might be in luck next Thursday as the Town of Aurora, in conjunction with up to 20 community groups, hosts a Youth Volunteer Fair.<\/p>\n

The Youth Volunteer Fair gets underway September 24 from 4 \u2013 7 p.m. at the Aurora Family Leisure Complex. <\/p>\n

\u201cI really want events that are delivered from the Town of Aurora to have that cache of youth knowing that if they come to a Town of Aurora event, it is going to be meaningful,\u201d says Dan Ridsdale, Youth Programmer for the Town of Aurora. \u201cIf we\u2019re going to host an event that allows youth to find volunteer opportunities, it is a meaningful one and they know they can walk away knowing there is a lot of stuff they can take away from it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Youth Volunteer Fair was an idea born out of suggestions taken in by the Town through teens serving on the Town\u2019s Youth Engagement Committee as well as suggestions received in The Loft, the youth drop-in space at the Aurora Family Leisure Complex. <\/p>\n

\u201cMoving forward, everything we\u2019re doing is coming from the request, or the idea, of a youth,\u201d says Mr. Ridsdale.<\/p>\n

But, this is also part of a wider goal set by the Town. Aurora is currently in the process of receiving designation from Play Works Partnership (The Ontario Partnership for Active and Engaged Youth) to be a \u201cYouth Friendly Community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Focused on the \u201cpower of play\u201d, this designation signifies communities like Aurora are making a true investment in youth play, whether it is through civic engagement, sport, cultural activities, or any combination thereof. <\/p>\n

\u201cCome January 2016, we are going to be submitting our application to become a Youth Friendly Community,\u201d says Mr. Ridsdale. \u201cThere are 16 criteria, and a lot of it is determining the variety of youth services and access youth have to those services. This Youth Friendly Community Designation is largely a test on whether or not youth have a voice and whether or not there is engagement happening. <\/p>\n

\u201cFor youth to have a voice, we have to show we\u2019re giving them the various platforms for them to speak their voice. They want to see there is alternative transportation being offered and they want to see us using more modern ways of communicating with our youth and connecting them with community services.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another focus, he says, is \u201cwraparound support\u201d for youth-related services, rather than individual groups going it alone without a partnership. Through The Loft, Mr. Ridsdale says he invited community groups to participate and be there to share their services with young people using the space, including 360 Kids, which tackles the issue of youth homelessness.<\/p>\n

\u201cRather than just having [these groups] just fend for themselves, we\u2019re going to have them come to some of our youth events and we\u2019ll work in partnership with them,\u201d he says. \u201cThe Youth Friendly Designation is about making sure everyone who is working together has the best interests of the youth [at heart]. It is a needs analysis for us to unpack various services and make sure we\u2019re all doing it in a streamlined, uniform fashion.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Next Thursday’s Youth Volunteer Fair aims not only to connect local teens with area volunteer opportunities, but move Aurora one step closer to being a “Youth Friendly Community.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-35Q","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-02 02:28:25","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11894\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}