For Gen Z, the boredom of quarantine spring has given way to a blazing summer of grassroots change.
has affected their access to education, their extracurricular passions, their college admissions, their access to life-affirming summer programs and overnight camps, their ability to socialize with friends and to make new connections, and their future plans.
HuffPost spoke with 10 teenagers across the country, all ages 13 to 18. They have very different identities and passions. But from Phoenix to Toledo, Ohio, to Leonardtown, Maryland, one thing they all have in common is a baseline of hope in the budding power of their generation to effect change. They aren’t blind to the problems that their communities face.
What we do is we make civic education materials for teachers on things like how to see the bias in pieces of media. But this summer, instead of doing that, we started applying to a few different grants so we can start a virtual summer program. And so, hopefully, if that works out, that’s what I plan on doing this summer.
The day after the San Ramon protest, I was at a protest in Pleasanton with my friends, and I was scrolling through Instagram, and I saw an ad for the Golden Gate Bridge protest. This girl had commented saying, “I obtained the permit, but I don’t have a leader, so I think we’re going to cancel.” And I was like, “If you need a leader, I just spoke at the San Ramon protest, and I want to get more involved. I’ll help you.
It’s really important that we recognize youth and their voices. The last few months have been eye-opening. I’ve always been the kid that goes with the flow. I am guilty of thinking that I couldn’t have any type of impact on the world. But I’ve always had this stirring in me. I just felt like no one would listen. You’re making the choice every single day to make a difference or not make a difference. If every kid in America knew they had the power to do more, we could be making a change.
Something that I’ve done since middle school is debate, and it’s really important to me. However, a lot of people are deterred by the cost. That’s something that I wanted to change. So my friend and I created a middle school debate camp, Maverick Debate. Unfortunately, now we can’t offer an in-person camp. So now I’m figuring out how we are going to adapt the curriculum to Zoom.
I’m grateful that it happened at this time in my life, because being a teenager is still a time where you’re learning how to be who you want to be.Saige Chaseley is a 13-year-old homeschooler who is in the process of finishing seventh grade. Before coronavirus, she was training three to four hours a day for her senior gold medal tests in figure skating. After contracting COVID-19 from her mother, she recovered but still has lingering issues with her esophagus.
I was really hopeful in the beginning of the summer. I didn’t think that quarantine would last so long. I’ve still been FaceTiming my friends a lot and using Houseparty. I’ve gotten to spend more time with my family and learn new ways of staying in touch with my grandparents. I’ve also been going to social distancing picnics. And we got a trampoline, so me and my siblings have been using that a ton.
My high school experience was very high pressure. So summer was always a chance for me to breathe. This summer, I was supposed to go to a religious camp convention in the Smoky Mountains, but the entire convention was canceled due to COVID. I was also planning to go into a discipleship training in South Carolina for three months. Now everything is online.
Recently, I went out protesting. It was very moving. I never thought a community could come so close together. People were offering protesters Capri Suns, pizza. But at the same time, it was like I forgot that there was a pandemic going on. It’s a completely different world when you go into that protest. The sign I carried said, “Black lives matter.”
My generation has grown up with this idea that they’re going to make a difference in the world. And now we’re upholding those claims.Temma Schlesinger is a 17-year-old recent high school graduate. She was one of just a few Jewish kids at her school. Camp Galil in Pennsylvania, where she was supposed to be a counselor for the first time this summer, represented a place for building a meaningful community and talking to other kids about social justice.
When coronavirus hit, all of a sudden I was like, “Whoa, my kids are going to ask me, ‘What was it like to live during corona?’” Being a teenager right now is a little bit scary but also exciting. Corona is just scary, but growing up at camp with all of this focus on youth empowerment and youth social justice, I think it’s super-awesome to watch the anti-racism protests and be part of a youth community that really is standing up and making a difference.
I’ve been involved with Green Garden Bakery for almost three years, since I was 11 or 12. One of our friends in the neighborhood got into a car accident, and she was paralyzed from the neck down. There was a cooking class for young kids in the neighborhood, and one of the recipes was a green tomato cake. So in order to raise money for her medical bills, we took that cake and went to the Midtown Farmers Market, sold it there, and we wanted to raise $500, but we ended up raising $1,500.
A little over a week ago, some of the Green Garden Bakery team made a community safety video. Another executive member and I went to the park and we made a rap about the George Floyd situation, along with sharing ways to make things better.
Normally, I would have cross country practices in the summer. And the other thing I’ve been doing the last few summers is a program with CISV, which I was planning to do this summer as well. Coronavirus seems like something like the Black Plague that will be referred to in history books. It’s pretty crazy because I feel this is one of the most major historical events that has happened in my lifetime. It’s definitely hard: My senior year is getting disrupted by coronavirus, and it’s challenging to navigate that. And then with the anti-racism protests and the election, all of that just kind of amplifies everything that’s going on.
After the pandemic, I won’t take spending time with my friends or being able to go outside for granted.Malini Lodhavia is a rising high school junior. Her family moved to Delaware from New York when she was a baby. She has been in quarantine since March 14 and is going “very stir crazy.” I want adults to understand that it’s really hard for us not to be able to see our friends. It can be draining because you feel isolated from everybody. You only have the same people to hang out with, and things are different when you’re with your friends. I feel like I can be more of myself in a certain way around them. And with my family, it’s just different. My friends will understand certain things about me better than my family will. And vice versa.
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