Kyle Area Youth Advisory Council returns

KYLE — After being shut down in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Kyle Area Youth Advisory Council (KAYAC) is back. What started years before the pandemic in 2013, KAYAC is a committee of students in grades 9-12 who all live in the Kyle city limits or attend a Hays CISD school. The committee is meant to give youth, a large portion of the population of Kyle, a voice, as well as to give their perspective on certain issues that the city council discusses. In order to get things up and running again, the city council worked with the Kyle Parks and Recreation Department to promote the organization and induct new members. Through applications and a series of interviews, the following committee members were selected and KAYAC started again with its first meeting in September 2023. • Council Chair: Isabella Green • Council Vice Chair: Anthony Jaramillo • Secretary: Charlotte Garza • Treasurer: Joshua Power • Committee Liaisons: Gabriel Belmonte and Sophia Ramirez • Social Chair: Mirabella Dietz • Marketing Chair: Gavin Resendez Lopez • Members: Alexia Smith, Donovan Santine, Jackson Juel, Mason Coleman, Emilee Mueller and Emma Sanchez After being inactive for nearly three years, the group has worked on rebuilding the foundations of the organization by adjusting the by-laws and the overall fundamentals of the meetings. The group has also established a brand new role in the council, known as the health liaison, which works to communicate with various health organizations, identify possible actions that could be made to help solve problems for the youth and gain the youth’s perspective on various issues in the community. KAYAC has also been working on its main project it focuses on every year: the Capstone Project. The project gives back to or helps the community in some way. A past project was KAYAC’s efforts and contributions to the city's all inclusive playgrounds for people with disabilities. The group worked on the logistics of the idea and passed it through the city’s Parks and Recreation Department and Kyle City Council, which helped bring it to fruition. Other previous achievements of the committee include the banning of e-cigarettes for people under the age of 18 in Kyle and the creation of the skate park at Gregg-Clarke Park. This year, the KAYAC members’ project is the cleaning up of a park, yet to be decided, where they will then host a community event and people can pay to personally customize a rock that will be added to a trail, which will be permanently a part of the park. All of the donations will go toward the Forever 15 Project to support its fight against fentanyl and drug usage affecting kids in the community. This will not only raise money for the Forever 15 Project, but also bring awareness to an issue that is very prevalent in Hays County. “The fact y'all are not only doing your capstone project, cleaning up parks, raising money for Forever 15 fighting against fentanyl overdoses, which is a big problem in Hays County, and creating a trail, but the fact you're bringing that youth perspective is incredible,” said Jesse Elizondo, city liaison for KAYAC. “A big population of Kyle is the youth or people under 18, so to have that representation is amazing.” KAYAC works directly with the city council, discussing problems that the city officials personally ask the board to give its opinion on. “KAYAC is a great way for not just the members, but for all youth in the community to get involved and give their opinion on city issues. It’s exciting to see and I’m excited for this group and the organization’s future now that it’s back,” Elizondo stated. KAYAC is back and will continue to work toward making a lasting, positive impact on the community and providing the youth with an opportunity to have its voice be heard.