How Youth Leadership Highlands is Inspiring a Redesign Project for the CAC

Hello, I'm Bryce Langston, a Youth Leadership Highlands Class V member. This has been my second year participating in the program. As a way of putting to action what was learned from the first year of the YLH program, a group of other second year students and I were able to participate in a service project. For the past few months, we have met every three weeks at the Children's Advocacy Center (CAC) in Sebring with the intent of planning it’s redesigning, taking into account the teenage audience that it sees coming through its doors quite often. The idea was to redesign the CAC facilities to accommodate for younger children and teenagers, as both of these age groups need the CAC's services but it was originally designed for the younger children.

After touring the building and discussing the "must-haves" and "must-go's" for the project, the YLH students split into groups that would each create their own design.

During one of our meetings, we journeyed to Lowe's, Marshall's, and Ashley's Furniture to find the items we would include in our plans for furniture, decor, and color scheme. Prior to this, surveys had been conducted at different public events to find which themes and colors were preferred by each age group, so we all had a general idea of what we were to look for.

Working with the likes and dislikes of fellow YLH students, as well as the general public, was scarcely easy; not everybody agreed on what had to be changed in the CAC and what had to be added to it, particularly the colors that should be used, even though we all decided it would be some sort of blue (I've learned that there are a lot of shades of blue, even one named "roaming pony"). Despite the differences in preference, however, each group was able to create a design that reflected our desire to comfort every person that entered the CAC.

Though we have finished our group designs, the YLH second-year students will continue to meet at the CAC until we see the entire project through. It has been an honor and a pleasure to get the chance to work with my fellow YLH students once again.