Vaping and tobacco use, personal hygiene, and mental health top the list of issues the youth of Crawford, Ogemaw, and Oscoda Counties feel are affecting themselves and their peers.
The North Central Michigan Community Foundation’s (NCMCF) Youth Advisory Council (YAC) recently completed a Youth Needs Assessment Survey, gathering opinions on the known issues currently affecting youth. YAC is a youth philanthropy program through the Community Foundation, which teaches young people the importance of philanthropy and helps them develop leadership skills through grantmaking and community service.
Every three years, YACs throughout Michigan are required to survey their fellow youth to gain insight into the issues the youth feel are the most pressing for their local communities. The results of the survey are used to guide the YAC’s grantmaking for the next three years to address those issues. Grants from NCMCF’s Youth Advisory Council are awarded through the Crawford, Ogemaw, and Oscoda County Kellogg Youth Endowment Funds held at the Community Foundation.
“The results of this survey provide a good snapshot of what youth are facing in our communities, and give our YACs, our board, and even other funders and private donors in our region a guide to help direct funding and donations where it is needed most,” says Community Foundation Program Director Jennifer Dingman.
Dingman says that while depression, mental health and stress have remained high on the survey results for the past six years, vaping and hygiene are issues that have moved into the top areas of concern in the region.
“We now have input directly from the pre-teens and teens of our area telling us they recognize these issues as real problems they want to see addressed for their peers,” says Dingman. “We hope nonprofits in Crawford, Ogemaw, and Oscoda Counties with programs that can address these issues, and others identified in the needs assessment, will apply for grant funding to support their work in these important areas.”
As a leadership activity, YAC members, working with their adult advisors, oversee the distribution of this survey to students in their own schools. The 2025 NCMCF Youth Needs Assessment survey includes feedback from over 340 students at high schools in the NCMCF service area. Once survey results are compiled, the list is narrowed down to the ten issues sited most as needing attention. Those ten issues from the 2025 survey are:
- Vaping / smoking / tobacco use
- Hygiene
- Depression / mental health
- Stress issues
- Teen drug use
- Bullying
- Teen suicide
- Body image / appearance issues
- Underage alcohol use
- Eating disorders
“These ten issues are where our YAC will direct as much funding as possible,” said Dingman. “While not every grant application needs to address these categories, we hope these results will encourage local agencies to enhance their efforts in tackling these issues with the knowledge that our YAC has a desire and ability to put funds toward those programs.”
To learn more about the Community Foundation’s YAC, or to support this group of young philanthropists through donations to the Kellogg Youth Endowment Funds at NCMCF, visit ncmcf.org.
The North Central Michigan Community Foundation is an affiliate of the Community Foundation for Northeast Michigan (CFNEM), which serves as the administrative arm for NCMCF. Committed to providing people who care about the future of the region and its communities with unique and effective ways of supporting their community now, and for generations to come, NCMCF is led by a volunteer board of local citizens. The foundation oversees a group of permanently endowed funds from a wide range of donors. Gifts of all sizes from individuals, families, business and agencies are invested in a balanced, well-managed portfolio to build endowments, enabling support for local community nonprofits now and forever. To donate or learn more about how community foundations work, visit ncmcf.org or call 989-354-6881; toll-free: 877-354-6881.
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