YOP strengthens the community through:
- Empowering youth;
- Providing opportunities for youth;
- Encouraging youth civic participation and volunteer work; and
- Advising city government.
The Youth Opportunities Program (YOP) promotes youth civic engagement and leadership development, organizes community events and provides youth perspective and recommendations on city and community projects, issues and initiatives.
YOP strengthens the community through:
Since 1994 the YOP has:
Allocated more than $2 million in sales tax funds to provide more than 100,000 youth with access to cultural, educational, and recreational activities.
Funded youth-serving or -supporting programs in more than 150 schools and organizations.
Compensated young people for contributing more than 55,000 hours of volunteer service to the community.
The YOP offers Boulder youth opportunities to impact their own lives and those of other youth through peer outreach and representation of youth voice in local government and community projects and initiatives, and funding of individual and community grants.
The YOP facilitates:
Young people educating each other how to prevent risky behaviors.
Programs that help improve attendance, academics, health and well-being.
Youths finding their voices.
Critical thinking, writing, interviewing and other professional skills.
YOP does this work through the Youth Opportunities Advisory Board (YOAB), which is made up of 16 students from four local public and private high schools.
Past YOAB projects include:
A six-week paid summer internship, where interns are matched with a city department to gain experience in city government. In addition to supporting their assigned department, interns take part in career readiness sessions hosted by YOP staff where they develop and enhance professional skills that will help them succeed in their post and in future endeavors.
Applications for 2024 internships have closed.
The YOP maintains a list of many different local civic engagement programs that middle or high school students can become involved in. Many of them tend to be longer-term commitments than the volunteer opportunities listed in the Youth Volunteer Information booklet, also published by the YOP, which contains a list of local youth volunteer opportunities organized by age.
The Outstanding Youth Volunteer Awards (OYVA) events have been on hold since 2020. We anticipate reinstating these events in spring 2023.