BY KEELIN EVERLY-LANG for WEEKLY VOLCANO | 10/2/2026
Many youth and young adults have a desire to make a positive difference but are overwhelmed by all the problems in the world and don’t know where to start.
Especially with election season coming up, one of the best antidotes to feeling hopeless can be to find a way to take action locally.
If you’re between the ages of 14 and 24 in Pierce County, there are a lot of opportunities to get involved with making a difference and some of them are even paid.
With ballots getting mailed out on October 13 for this year’s election, the first thing to know is that 16- and 17-year-olds can sign up as Future Voters and be automatically registered to vote when they become eligible. If you will turn 18 before November 3 this year, you can register now and vote in the upcoming election.
You can register here: https://voter.votewa.gov/portal2023/login.aspx
On this year’s ballot, there are initiatives that will affect people of all ages but especially youth, including funding for schools, public safety, and money for public transportation like buses and access to bike routes.
There are also people running for office, and who gets into office can have impacts on job and training opportunities, childcare, education access, environmental efforts, and more.
We’ll start with opportunities for younger youth leaders and work our way up to early adults.
The City of Tacoma has a Mayor’s Youth Commission, which is an award-winning, youth-led, project-based advocacy group and advisory body to the Tacoma City Council.
This group is open to any middle- or high-school-age person who either lives in or attends school in Tacoma.
According to the mayor’s office, MYCT is “Tacoma’s only youth-focused platform that provides civic education, personal development, direct access to engage with their local government, and opportunities to influence the most important decisions that affect them and their community.”
The MYCT meets every month from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. with lunch provided at the Boys and Girls Club located at 3875 South 66th Street in Tacoma.
The next meeting is coming up on October 10, and you do not need to sign up in advance to attend a Youth Commission meeting; you can just show up.
At the Washington State Legislature, there are several different opportunities for young people to get involved in making decisions for the entire state.
The Senate Page Program is for those ages 14 to 16 who want to learn about the process of making laws and become familiar with the Washington State Legislature. Participants are paid to spend a week performing a variety of tasks that the state Senate couldn’t function without, including distributing bills and other relevant documents to Senate members, fulfilling ceremonial duties, and more.
The next legislative session begins on January 11, 2027, and ends on April 26, 2027, and applications open on November 1.
The Legislative Youth Advisory Council (LYAC) is another state-level opportunity, this one for ages 14 to 18. The LYAC is a nonpartisan youth-led committee empowered by state law to represent the official voice of Washington youth to the legislature. While applications for this program are currently closed, its job is to represent the voices of the 1.6 million young people in Washington.
The LYAC includes students from a “diverse range of political, geographic, and socioeconomic backgrounds” who are appointed to the council by the Lt. Governor’s Office. On the council, students spend two years learning about and engaging directly with the legislative process by making meaningful policy recommendations to the legislature.
One of the roles of the LYAC is to plan an annual Youth Action Day in the state Capitol where “student attendees get to learn about policy and legislative strategy from workshops, hear from and speak with influential politicians and advocates, network with other youth from all backgrounds, and express their legislative priorities to policymakers.”
The 2027 date hasn’t been announced yet, but you can learn more and check back for more information when it is released at https://walyac.org/actionday
The third program in the legislature is the Legislative Internship Program, which provides an opportunity for juniors and seniors in college both to work within the legislature as full-time, paid staff to legislative members and to receive school credit.
Students are matched with legislative offices based on expressed interests and strengths and work 40 hours per week through either winter quarter or spring semester.
Interns’ work experience is enhanced by an academic program, which includes seminars, budget exercises, mock hearings, and floor debates, and so on.
Applications for this program are due soon: priority deadline is October 21, 2026, at 11:59 p.m., and the final deadline is October 28, 2026, at 11:59 p.m.
A nongovernmental youth advocacy organization is Washington Bus, which is working to build a large coalition of young leaders in Washington state and hosts candidate forums, voter registration activities, and more. They “combine social justice curriculum with structured opportunities to gain hands-on community organizing skills,” and you can even request that they come to your classroom for civics education.
To get involved and learn more, head to https://www.washingtonbus.org/join
Issue-based opportunities
If you are passionate about a specific area of positive change rather than learning about how to make change in general, there are local ways to get involved.
Homelessness:
If you are between the ages of 12 and 24 and have experience with housing instability or homelessness, the REACH Center hosts a meeting every Wednesday from 6 to 9 p.m. and pays $20 per hour in compensation for participants. The mission of YAB (Youth Advisory Board) is to “create positive change in our community, taking back voice and power by offering more collaboration with and for youth and young adults, more supportive and structured housing, and more support to all youth and young adults in all stages of their lives.”
Climate change and environment:
Youth Engaged in Sustainable Solutions (YESS) is a program through Pierce County that invites high-school- and college-age youth who want to make a difference in their local communities to participate in developing solutions to some of our most pressing environmental problems.
There are several ways to get involved and become part of the YESS network.
You can attend one of its scheduled events or invite representatives to come to your club or classroom to do a personalized workshop! All spaces are open and free to join. To find out more or get involved in any of these programs, fill out its form online.
YESS has several events coming up in October including an Explore and Restore session on Saturday, October 10, a Solid Waste Advisory Committee on Wednesday, October 14, and a Food Waste Composting with Worms program on Tuesday, October 20.
LGBTQ:
Check out last week’s article at https://weekly-volcano.com/category/resources/ to see leadership and civic engagement opportunities for LGBTQ youth and young adults.
No matter what you’re passionate about, it can be inspiring to know that young people can make a powerful difference throughout the country and the world.
A great place to get inspired is the Power of Young People Podcast hosted by the National Youth Leadership Council, another organization with many different ways to get involved as youth leaders.
