Senior Essay 47

Leadership did not start with a title for me. It started when I noticed the young people around me had things worth saying and nobody was listening. That moment shaped everything that followed.
When I was appointed District Youth Commissioner for the City of Kansas City, I was a high schooler walking into rooms full of adults, city officials, and policymakers. I carried the concerns of kids who had learned to stay quiet. It was intimidating. But the discomfort I felt in those rooms was nothing compared to the silence young people in my community had lived with for years.
Many kids where I am from had given up on the idea that their voices mattered. Decisions got made about their schools, their parks, their neighborhoods, and their futures and nobody asked what they needed. Adults labeled them too young, too emotional, or too disconnected to contribute to serious conversations about their own community. My role was to challenge that directly.
I started by showing up and listening. I held informal sessions where students could talk without feeling judged or dismissed. No clipboards. No formal agendas. No authority figures sitting across a desk with a notepad. Just honest conversations about what life actually looked like for them day to day.
What I heard was heavy.
Kids talked about feeling unsafe walking home from school. They talked about having nowhere to go after the last bell rang. They talked about pressure to fit in, to numb out, and to grow up faster than they were ready for. Vaping and drug use were not random problems showing up in the community. They were signs of something deeper: boredom, disconnection, and the feeling that nobody cared enough to offer something better.
Once I understood that, my entire approach changed. I stopped treating young people’s struggles as behavior problems that needed punishment. I started seeing them as gaps in support that needed to be filled. That shift in thinking made me a better advocate and a more effective leader.
I advocated for better recreational spaces, ones that were safe, accessible, and worth going to. I pushed for anti-vaping campaigns that spoke to teenagers in language they recognized instead of talking down to them. I supported mentorship programs that connected young people with adults who genuinely believed in them. The goal was always prevention over reaction and connection over correction.
Bringing those voices into city meetings was where leadership got real. I stood up to speak in rooms where I was the youngest person by decades. Every eye turned toward me. I was nervous. I second guessed myself more than once. But one question kept pulling me forward: if I do not say this, who will?
The kids I represented were not in that room. They were at home, at school, on street corners, waiting to see if anyone would follow through. I was the only reason their concerns had a seat at the table. That responsibility was bigger than any nervousness I felt.
Over time, I watched things shift. Young people who had been completely disengaged started showing up to sessions. They started asking questions and sharing opinions they had kept to themselves for years. When they saw their words repeated in city hall and real changes beginning to take shape, something in them changed. Watching a young person realize their voice carries weight is something I will not forget. That became the reason I kept going when the work felt slow or discouraging.
This role also pushed me to grow in ways I did not anticipate. I got comfortable speaking in professional settings with people who had far more experience than me. I learned how to build a clear case for something I believed in. I learned how to work alongside people who did not always agree with me and stay focused on outcomes rather than conflict. I saw firsthand how community systems are built and where they consistently fall short for young people.
The most important thing I took away from this experience was not a skill. It was clarity. I know what I want my life to be about. I want to keep doing this work, with more knowledge, more tools, and more reach. Higher education gets me there.
Understanding public policy, community development, and the systems that shape people’s lives will make me a stronger advocate. The work I did as a Youth Commissioner showed me what is possible when someone is willing to step forward and speak up. College is where I go to deepen that foundation and prepare for the work ahead.
I came into this role to give young people a platform. I did not expect the work to shape me as much as it did. I found purpose in it. I found discipline in it. I found a version of myself I did not know existed before I walked into those city meetings.
Leadership is not about age or authority. It is about being willing to act when action is needed. I learned that by watching kids find their voices. And along the way, I found mine too.