Youth Policy Summit on Great Lakes Water Resources held at Aquinas College

This week, running July 22-28, the Keystone Center is hosting a Youth Policy Summit on Great Lakes Water Resources at Aquinas College. The program was offered to high school students from all over the country who are interested in learning the issues facing freshwater and coming up with solutions to preserve it for the future. 

This summit is the 27th program put on by the Keystone Center and is the fourth year to be held in Michigan. Before the summit kicked-off this week, the students were assigned pre-research in addition to being assigned the role of a stakeholder, to further enhance their knowledge before delving into this week’s activities. Some of the program’s highlights include mediation and negotiation training, team building and leadership activities, an expert panel discussion, and the final writing and presenting of their solutions. 

“There was a number of companies that chipped in to make the program go; an array from academia to businesses,” said Jeremy Kranowitz, Director of the Youth Policy Summit.

Among some of the supporters are Consumers Energy, Amway, Haworth, Steelcase, and Herman Miller. Some of the companies offered speakers to discuss the role of sustainability and natural resources in business. In addition, the City of Grand Rapids provided a speaker from the Office of Energy and Sustainability.

The solutions on how to preserve the Great Lakes and other bodies of fresh water will be presented on Friday July 27 at 1 p.m. in the Aquinas College library. Kranowitz says that they are truly “thankful” for all of the support.