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Parents

Let us help your Young Leader find their way.

At CYL, we believe the greatest classrooms are not classrooms at all. We offer a world of experiences for your teen to grow in their leadership. CYL is a multifaceted program focused on serving our communities while also challenging young people to expand their thinking in creative and impactful ways. They do so with the tools, guidance and full resources we provide to have clear vision, heart for others, and the confidence to rise as leaders.

Let us help your Young Leader find their way.

Leaders never stop learning to lead.

Your teens will arrive with hope and determination. They will leave with a better outlook, a better path forward, and better equipped for life.

Meet the leaders here to create new leaders.

So what can your kids expect with CYL?

We are invested in the next generation of difference makers. The policy makers. The business leaders. The active citizens. The ones who make a difference for our entire community.

Becoming a top leader never happens overnight. It’s a matter of taking the time to sharpen skills, find their voice, drive change and motivate others by taking deeper dives into community engagement with passion and purpose.

While our students have the space to engage in conversations that aren’t happening in other environments, it’s essential to have a community of parents who rally together behind these young leaders to help them navigate through everyday challenges.

In the end, we need leaders who use their heads with their hearts. They are more confident. More compassionate. More prepared for anything that lies ahead. They are our own kids and we need to encourage them to be the leaders they were meant to be.

Say, you’d be a great volunteer! 

We need people ready to help shape tomorrow’s leaders. We need commitment. We need compassion. We need you.

Look at all the experiences to share or gain experience.

 

  • Summit Guide: Lead a CYL Chapter and work with teens
  • Lead: Develop and facilitate Service Adventures that lean into your passions and share with students
  • Advocate: Share our work with school and community partners
  • Envision: Support our strategic growth and vision by becoming a member of our Board of Directors
  • Communicate: Capture the impact and share the story

Connect with us. Then connect to a greater world.

CYL OFFICE

Colorado Young Leaders
250 Fillmore Street, Suite #225
Denver, CO 80206

(720) 924-6590

KEY CONTACTS

Jen Landers – Executive Director
Lauren Steavpack – Program Director
Hayley Krawitz – Outreach Manager
Flora Block – Program Coordinator
Nicole Mahobian – Founder

CYL CHAPTERS

Please check the CYL Calendar for upcoming dates. Location and time subject to change depending on chapter activities. For questions regarding chapters contact Lauren Steavpack, Program Director.  

If you’re a high school student looking to enhance your leadership skills and make a difference in your community, consider attending a Changemaker Meeting. We hold meetings throughout the school year at various locations around Denver. See below for times and days!

Central Denver Area
2nd & 4th Tuesdays, 7:00-8:30pm

Northeast Denver Area
2nd & 4th Tuesdays, 6:30-8:00pm

Northwest Denver Area
2nd & 4th Thursdays, 6:30-8:00pm

Southwest Denver Chapter
2nd & 4th Mondays, 7:00-8:30pm

Virtual Chapter
2nd & 4th Wednesdays, 7:00-8:30pm

*Dates, times and locations subject to change. Contact Lauren Steavpack, CYL Program Director, for most up to date Changemaker Meeting information.

It takes a village to strengthen the entire world. 

Empowering one Young Leader changes everything. You see the change within that person. You see how it changes the world around them. It’s a ripple effect that transforms into waves of positive impact that affects everyone—including the leaders themselves.

Calendar of Events

Being involved is everything. Ands it all starts by you signing up for your first CYL opportunity. This is it. Your chance to lead. Your moment to connect with something you’re really passionate about. Plenty to choose from here and we create even more programs based on your ideas, so share those too! You give your ideas. We make it happen.

Parent FAQs

WHAT TYPE OF SERVICE OPPORTUNITIES ARE AVAILABLE TO MY TEEN THROUGH CYL?

At CYL, we believe service is both about discovering your own unique talents and passions and positively contributing to your community. For this reason, we seek to provide a breadth of opportunities inviting our students to explore the many different ways they can lead and make a difference in their communities. Our students have participated in service directly influencing a wide variety of causes including homelessness, adaptive sports, education, literacy, art, people with disabilities, environmental stewardship, food justice, social justice, civic engagement, and so much more. We do this all in partnership with other community organizations. You can find our many partners here. There are a variety of opportunities each month, and after testing the waters, we hope they will find the thing that sparks their passion and purpose.

WHAT IS THE BASIS OF YOUR LEADERSHIP CURRICULUM?

Our leadership curriculum is organic and action-oriented, focusing on themes developed from a collection of the best ideas of great thinkers, educators, partner universities, corporations, and our own youth. It is our curriculum that develops our leaders into self-aware, civic-minded, and motivated change makers. We believe the best education should be founded and challenged in experiences with others. This is why we ask our Young Leaders to “take action” at the end of each meeting.

WHAT IS THE DECALIBRON SUMMIT PROGRAM AND WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?

The goal of our program is for youth to dig deeper and fully commit to reach higher goals. Metaphorically, youth achieve their ambitions by reaching four mountain summits before they graduate high school. 

The CYL summits are named after the Decalibron Loop peaks in Fairplay, Colorado and these particular visual drives our Leadership Skills Development. These summits help our Young Leaders focus on community involvement, living outside their comfort zones, developing the beauty that exists in their communities, and taking risks that benefit others. It’s a leadership style that brings out the best in all of us! This process allows your Young Leader to explore their passion, then commit to a cause; it moves them through this process through experiential learning, so it feels natural and fun.

WHAT NON-PROFIT AND COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS DO CYL PARTNER WITH?

CYL partners with over 45 nonprofit organizations focusing on key issues in our community and beyond, each of which is vetted by CYL Staff to ensure a quality service experience for all youth. These nonprofits are committed partners of the program, and also seek to involve youth beyond our partnership. Through this strong network of partners, we can help our students follow their hearts and find their passions. We support the missions that our students care about the most and we are constantly expanding our partner list. You can explore many of our partners and their missions by visiting our partner page on the CYL website.

HOW ARE SERVICE AND LEADERSHIP HOURS TRACKED BY CYL?

By becoming a member of CYL, students can track their service and leadership hours through our student portal. Our registration process allows your Young Leader to track how many Service Adventures or Leadership Exploration Meetings they have signed up for and the hours they have dedicated to both. Participation is validated at each event through our adult leaders. Young leaders may print out a service resume to automatically print service and leadership reports that they can provide to school counselors, scholarship applications, or college admission boards.

WHAT IS THE UNIQUE BENEFIT OF MY TEEN PARTICIPATING IN SERVICE OPPORTUNITIES THROUGH CYL?

The CYL program is built around five key values: Leadership + Service + Community + Adventure + Legacy. We infuse everything we do with these in mind. We seek to help students discover themselves, face challenges, become visionaries, and engage in their communities, plus we make sure we include lots of adventure along the way (because everything’s better with a dash of fun!). Additionally, college and university admissions departments are looking for students who have both depth and breadth in their community engagement. CYL offers students a robust program that they can engage with throughout their high school experience but also offers a gateway to explore a wide variety of causes and opportunities.  

HOW MANY SERVICE OPPORTUNITIES ARE AVAILABLE TO MY STUDENT THROUGH PARTICIPATION IN CYL?

Through our CYL-led Service Adventures and our partner-led individual service engagements the number of service opportunities is virtually unlimited. However, it is our goal to offer at a minimum of three CYL led Service Adventures a month and we anticipate offering over 50 in a given year. Students are encouraged to explore individual opportunities with our non-profit partners, and we list many of those opportunities on our calendar as well. Through the combination of our CYL and individual service opportunities our students can engage in an unlimited amount of service opportunities, and it is not uncommon for our members to easily exceed the hours required by their high schools and clubs.  

WHERE ARE THE LEADERSHIP MEETINGS HELD AND HOW CAN I GET MY TEEN ENGAGED?

Our Changemaker Meetings are chapter based, and we currently have five active chapters based on regions. Each chapter is made up of students who either attend school or live in convenient proximity to the chapter meeting. We encourage our students to engage with the chapter that is the best fit for them. Our current chapters include Central Denver, Northeast Denver, Northwest Denver, Southwest Denver, and a virtual chapter. Chapter locations and meeting dates can be found on the contact page of our website

DOES MY TEEN NEED TO PARTICIPATE IN ALL OF YOUR PROGRAM ACTIVITIES TO BE A MEMBER OF CYL?

Community is one of our values and one of the things that makes CYL unique. The more your teen participates, the more they will become part of the bond of our community. However, we encourage teens to become members and participate in ways that are most meaningful to them. We understand that high schoolers are busy – there is school, homework, clubs, sports, etc. – so we’ve created our program to be nimble. If service is their passion and priority, they are welcome to join us on the adventures that excites them the most and students can join throughout the year or at any point during their high school career.

HOW CAN I GET MY TEEN’S SCHOOL OR CLUB INVOLVED IN CYL?

CYL is a great pathway for high school service and academic clubs to connect to meaningful service opportunities. We also offer a series of workshops to schools or organizations who want to jump start community engagement within their program. We would be excited to engage with your teen’s school to determine how CYL can help bring the unique value of our program to help them meet their objectives. Contact us and find out more about these unique opportunities.

MY TEEN IS NOT REALLY INTERESTED IN OUTDOOR ADVENTURES LIKE HIKING AND SKIING. IS CYL THE RIGHT PLACE FOR THEM?

We can’t give you an answer to that question until they come and check us out. However, our dynamic community of teens thrives by embracing a diversity of interests and viewpoints. Plus, our robust program strives to guide students in their passions no matter where they lead. While we try to build outdoor adventure into many of the things we do, we truly believe that any student will find amazing opportunities and create lasting friendships by being a member of Colorado Young Leaders. We encourage youth to step out of their comfort zones and try something new – that’s what adventure means to us.