Empowering Tomorrow’s Leaders: Inside the YES! Youth Empowerment Summit with Mary Lingua

In this episode, Paul Ward welcomes Mary Lingua, Program Director for Camarillo’s YES! Youth Empowerment Summit to discuss this inspiring event designed to uplift and educate high school students. Sponsored by the Camarillo Rotary Club, Mary shares how YES! provides a full day of interactive workshops focused on public speaking, ethics, team building, and diversity, helping students grow into confident leaders. Held on Saturday, March 22, 2025, at the Grand Salon at CSU Channel Islands, the event brings together students, professionals, and mentors for a transformative experience where participants walk in as strangers and leave as friends.

Mary dives into the history of YES! and how she helped bring it to Ventura County three years ago through her Camarillo Rotary Club, emphasizing the impact it has on students, many of whom return as Color Group Counselors to mentor new participants. With an exciting schedule that includes DJ Tye Hollywood, a lunch provided by the Lions Club, and an awards ceremony supported by the Sheriff’s Department, YES! is a must-attend event for high school students looking to develop leadership skills and make lasting connections. Tune in to learn how to sign up, get involved, and be part of this empowering movement!

Watch the full episode HERE

What you’ll learn in this episode: 0:00 Introduction to the show, our guest, Mary Lingua, and today’s topic: YES! Youth Empowerment Summit

0:30 What is “YES!?” and when and where is it being held this year?

0:53 Who can participate in YES! and how many years this has occurred

1:28 What is YES! and how is it empowering high school students?

2:00 Students walk in as strangers and leave as friends. Mary tells us what the day looks like for the students participating

3:00 Mary describes the 4 “Color Group” workshops YES! students participate in throughout the day: Public Speaking, Ethics, Team Building, and Diversity

6:00 Paul asks Mary more about the students that participate in YES!

7:24 Who are the professionals that run YES!?

8:08 Mary tells us about her role as Program Director for Camarillo’s YES! and shares that she visits other areas YES! events to participate in them as well

9:20 The history of the YES! program and she helped bring it to Ventura County 3 years ago

10:05 More on YES! Students and inviting senior students back to be Color Group Counselors after they’ve attended YES! In previous years

11:05 How to sign up for YES! Along with a QR code and email address for more information

11:51 YES! Is being held Saturday, March 22, 2025 at Grand Salon CSUCI 8a-8p

12:10 The schedule for the day including DJ Tye Hollywood, lunch provided by the Lions Club and an awards ceremony with help from the Sheriff’s Department

12:51 Can students participate in YES! more than one time?

13:13 How to sign up for YES! Along with a QR code and email address for more information

14:47 A Special thank you to our sponsor: Opus Escrow

 

Related Episodes: The Road to the Rose Parade: Behind the Blooms Racing Through Community Spirit: The Legacy of The Hap Rapp Memorial Track Meet

Rotary International: https://www.rotary.org/ YES! Youth Empowerment Summit: [e-mail]

Contact Paul Ward: 805-479-5004 [e-mail]

 

Have ideas for future episodes? We'd love to answer your questions - leave a comment! For any home buying or home selling needs in the Ventura County area of California, please reach out to [e-mail] or visit www.HomeAndRanchTeam.com

A special THANK

Episode Transcript

(00:05):
Hey friends, it's Paul Ward here, andwelcome to On the Road. I am excited.
Today we have a special guestwith the Youth Empowerment Summit,
also known as Yes, MaryLingua. Welcome to On the Road.
Hello everybody. I'm excited to behere and I'm excited to talk about Yes.
Absolutely. And we're excited to learnall about it. So, Mary, what is Yes?

(00:29):
Yes is a Youth Empowerment Summit.
It's on March 22nd at CaliforniaState University Channel Islands.
Basically,
it's a one day leadership developmentclass for high school students
in Ventura County.
Okay. And are there particularhigh school students that,
or particular high schoolsthat are participating,

(00:51):
or is it open to everybodyin Ventura County? It.
It's open to everyone. We'refocused in on Camarillo,
Oxnard, and Ventura. And if space permits,
we open it to all studentsin Ventura County.
And about how many kids participate?
Between a hundred and 120.
Oh wow. Okay. And how manyyears has this been going on?

(01:12):
This is our third year,
and we're very excited abouthaving a third year mm-hmm.
. And so it's called,yes. Youth Empowerment Summit. Summit.
how are the kids getting empowered, Iguess? What is the program all about?
Oh, well, that's an awesome question.
Because basically they show upin the morning as strangers.

(01:35):
And by the end of the day, I always,
I'm always excited because I always saythey leave as a community of friends.
So they grow throughout the dayby sharing team building and
meeting new friends that aren'tnecessarily in their peer group.
Okay. So they walk in asstrangers and what, what happens,

(01:56):
what transpires to makethem leave as friends?
I they show up at eight o'clock inthe morning between eight and nine.
They get broken up into colorgroups. There are four color groups,
and those four color groups passthrough four workshops that are
intended to make them workoutside their comfort zone,

(02:17):
work with who's ever in their color group,
and challenge them to use new skills.
So like leadership skills,public speaking. What are the.
Well, we have four workshops.
I'll back up a little bit because thefirst part of the day is really important
too. They show up andit's really interesting.
They're usually very quiet andwe greet them with a handful

(02:42):
of leaders in the community,
and we get them excited to makenoise and build a color group
chant.
And so we make them basicallyloud throughout the day so that
they, so that it's nota classroom situation.
It's actually a fun situation.
And then they go to fourworkshops public speaking.

(03:04):
The intent of public speaking is toget them to understand how to present a
message, introduce themselves,
and talk to strangers and findout it's not so bad because we all
can talk . This is the numberone peer, right? You're a teenager.
Public speaking. Yeah. And if they'rea teenager, they all can talk.
The next class, thenext workshop is ethics.

(03:26):
And what we do is we give them differentscenarios that they have to decide
how to solve them. And there'sno right answer. For instance,
one of the things is wesay, okay, you are a,
a single mother and you have aninfant and you have no money.
You're living on the street,
and you walk into a grocery storeand you take some milk and you walk

(03:48):
out.
So is that ethical that you stolethe milk from a grocery store,
or is that unethical?
And so they have to have a wholeconversation about the impacts of
that. Is it ethical? Is there somethingelse that mother could have done?
And so it forces themto try to look at the,

(04:09):
the issues and not just makea yes or no answers. So it's,
it's a pretty intense workshop.Interesting. Then the other work, yeah,
the other workshop is team building.
Every year we change it outso that the kids don't know,
or they can't share whathappened the previous year.
So one year they had to build abridge across a fake lava field

(04:33):
by using boards.
Another year it was aspider maze with ropes,
and they had to untangle thespider maze just by using words.
Mm-Hmm . So it's a, ahands-on. So there's a planning phase,
and then there's a talking phase, andthen, then there's a failure phase.
And then ultimately they succeed atworking together to solve a particular

(04:55):
problem. And then the last workshopis diversity. And that's a,
an interesting workshop. It's probablynot what you think it is. Essentially,
the students come together ina setting where they have a
conversation about how they'redifferent and how they're the same.
They get to one of the, one ofthe fun things they'll say, well,

(05:18):
okay ladies what do you wanna tell thegentleman in the room of how you wanna be
treated? Oh, gentlemen,
what do you wanna tell the ladies inthe room on how you wanna be treated?
Or a conversation about who arethere families here that live in
a divorced family or not?Mm-Hmm .
And so they move around withdifferent impacts on their life,

(05:40):
and then they share thoseimpacts so that they can grow an
understanding of each other,
but also understand that we're alldifferent. But for the most part,
we're very similar. And if you create asituation of empathy and understanding,
you build community andyou can move forward.
That's, that's wonderful. Wouldyou say the kids that come in,

(06:03):
I mean broad range of kids,introverts, extroverts,
future leaders,
maybe kids that don't even know wherethere are and they're mom and dad,
just kind of Ted, you're doing this and.
All of the above? All of theabove. It's pretty exciting.
You get some who just reallywanna be there. They're, you know,

(06:24):
very outspoken and you can see them shinewhen they walk through the gate when
they register. But the ones that I,
excite me are the ones that weren'tso excited about being there
didn't really wanna talk.And by the end of the day,
they have gained so much understandingof themselves and are outspoken

(06:45):
because one of,
one of the items is when you bring agroup of teenagers together and you,
you remove their peer pressure andyou allow them to be free spirits,
they basically have areally big growth potential.
And that's the intent of theYouth Empowerment Summit,
is to take them out of their peerpressure in their high school setting,

(07:06):
bring them together with professionalsin the community who make it fun and
challenge them so that theyknow that the sky's the limit.
There's no limit for what they can do.
Right.
And you mentioned professionals who arethe folks that are actually running the
show, running the day?
The ba they're Rotarians and othercommunity members. So they're like me,

(07:28):
I'm an engineer, so Ivolunteer. They're lawyers,
they're city councilmembers. They're realtors,
they're store owners, their doctors,
lawyers retired individuals teachers.
Basically we bring leaders in thecommunity who are interested in developing
positive youth imagesmm-hmm .

(07:48):
And we wanna share and mentorour experiences with them,
and they can share their experienceswith us. So we all grow from the event.
Okay. So you as an engineer,
would you be talking engineering or wouldyou be taught you'd be leading one of,
one of the four different.
Well, my favorite job isbeing a color group counselor.

(08:11):
That's my favorite job, unfortunately,as the program director,
I don't participate asa color group leader.
What I do is I go to the other yesesin our area, I go to Bakersfield Yes.
Or see me. Yes. So I can be a color groupleader there and have that experience.
Interesting. So the,

(08:32):
the color group leader isthe most important role in the day because they're the
ones that have the, get thekids together, inspire them,
do to do some icebreakers in the morning.
They're the ones who getto know the kids all day,
spend the whole day with them,
moving them through workshops so youhave a more one-on-one experience with
them. And as an engineer, we're not,we're just sharing life experiences.

(08:57):
Sure. You know, why'd youbecome an engineer? Well,
because I was passionate aboutmath and science, you know,
and so you ask them what do they wannado? So it's essentially just, you know,
exploring from an adult perspectiveto a teenager, what, what they can do.
Mm-Hmm .
You mentioned Bakersfield. Sothis is not just a local program,
this is a Californiaprogram. Is it nationwide?

(09:20):
The program started about fiveyears ago in Simi Valley. Okay. At,
with Simi Valley, Rotariansand I attended that one.
And then it migrated toBakersfield Rotary Clubs. And they,
they call it Kern. Yes. There.And I attended that one.
And after attending those two, I sowanted to bring it to Ventura County.

(09:40):
Worked really hard to get aRotary grant and, and some,
and a grant from the Port of Mimi tobring the first one three years ago.
So we're on our third year now. Wonderful.
And have you had a chance to talk to Yes.
Graduates after they've completed theprogram and to learn where they've
gone on, you know,bigger and better things?

(10:01):
Or they've still maybe a seniorin high school, or they're,
maybe they're in college now?
Well, we focus on 10th and 11th graders,
although we open it to all high schoolstudents because we wanna fill the spots.
So we, we have, we open it to all of them.
The students that were in the 11thgrade that have migrated to be

(10:22):
seniors,
we invite some of them back to be colorgroup counselors mm-hmm .
So that we have an adult as acolor group counselor or two.
And then we have a couple of seniors that,
that can probably re relate to thestudents more than we can. Right. So they,
they they basically say thatthey changes their life and they,

(10:44):
they got,
they gained skills and had an exposureto others that they thought they
would never have. Andthey're always very thankful.
Interesting. That's great. Great. Andagain, this is gonna be when and where.
March 22nd at Cal State ChannelIslands at the Grand Salon.
It starts at eight and ends at eight. Wedidn't talk about the rest of the day.

(11:07):
Oh, wait, eight is 12 hours.
Yes, it.
Is. Wow.
We didn't talk about the whole day.That's the pretty exciting part.
So we should do the schedule. So theyshow up, they break up into color groups,
and they create a team chantand make some team spirit.
They go through, they rotate throughtwo workshops in the morning.

(11:28):
Then we have lunch. The Lions Clubprovides delicious hamburgers for us.
And this year we're gonnahave a campus scavenger hunt.
So we have some college students who aregonna take our color groups around and
have them do a scavenger hunt.And the color group that get,
that solves most of the prob the issuesat the scavenger hunt will get a prize.

(11:48):
And then they,
the color groups then rotate throughtwo more workshops in the afternoon.
Then we have an awesome dinner.
We have this really incredible awardceremony where we recognize high school
students for the leadership itemsthat they learn through the day.
So we ask them questions and they answer,
and then we basically give themawards for how they've answered those

(12:13):
questions. And the sheriff department,
a couple of sheriffs come and put thaton for us. Then we have an awesome dj.
Okay.
His name is Ty Hollywood.
He's come to support us and he basicallyplays some really incredible music and
and event.
Sometimes he brings gift cards to likeUniversal Studios or some of the local

(12:33):
venues. So it's a whole day event.And that's why you create a,
a community of friends because they getto spend the whole day together through
a variety of actions.
Right.
Now do some kids come back the followingyear or is it kind of a one and one and
done thing?
Some kids come back the followingyear. We don't encourage that.

(12:56):
But we don't stop them either.
Sure. And how many, howmany can it accommodate?
What's the total head count for All we.
Look for, we look for a hundred kids,
but we register 120for no shows. So we're,
we plan for 120 if everyone showed up.
So you do have a QR code where folkscan, folks can register and I will,

(13:17):
you know, put it up on the screen,
but do you have a Instagram or Facebookaccount that parents listening or
watching can, can go to?
Yes, we have an Instagramaccount. It's, yes,
rotary CI Y-E-S-R-O-T-A-R-Y-C-I.
And if you follow us on Instagram,
you'll get all the latest informationabout the event as well as the flyer and

(13:39):
QRS posted there. There also is an email,so if you just drop an email to Yes.
Rotary [e-mail],
you'll get a flyer in the mail aswell. But your schools also have it.
If you go to your counselor,they should have it as well.
Wonderful. And again, this is comingup quick. This is in about two months.
Right.
The registration will stay open till theend of February or a little longer if

(14:04):
we haven't filled all the spots. Butthere's a, a lot of demand right now.
Mm-Hmm .
I keep getting feedback from parents andteachers that says, I'm super excited.
This is gonna be a greatevent for my student.
That the ones that came lastyear had a really good time.
So since it's our thirdyear, the word is out.

(14:25):
And so if you wanna register, youshould register pretty quickly.
Wonderful. Well, Mary Lingo with theYES program and Camarillo Rotary,
thank you so much for being our gueston On the Road. We'd loved having you.
Thank you. Thanks forhaving me. Have a great day.
Absolutely. You too.