Please Note: New Jersey and Pennsylvania cooperatives have decided not to participate in 2022's Youth Tour 2022
The cooperatives of the Pennsylvania Rural Electric Association (PREA), of which Sussex Rural Electric Cooperative is a member, have made the decision to not participate in this year's Youth Tour event. This decision was made due to the difficulty involved in ensuring the health and safety of members' children on this trip to Washington, D.C., where students from all over the country would meet and interact, during the ongoing pandemic.
SREC and the other PREA cooperatives will resume participation in Youth Tour in the future, once conditions have improved. If you would like more information on the program, please read the passage below!
You know how some people describe their vacations as "the trip of a lifetime?" Here at Sussex Rural Electric Cooperative, we don't take that phrase lightly. The trip of a lifetime must be truly unique - something eye opening and expansive. It must be something beyond a normal vacation; not just a break from the normal but an experience that will leave an impact on you for the rest of your life. Youth Tour is that trip.
Youth Tour is the opportunity to see history come alive. It's the chance to see and experience our nation's capital. Youth Tour is a blend of education, professional development, and fun. It's the opportunity to forge new friendships with students from your school and from schools across the United States. It's the opportunity to learn about our nation and the role you can play in it. And it's the chance to be a part of a special experience that you will never forget. Youth Tour truly is the trip of a lifetime and if you're a high school junior whose home is powered by Sussex Rural Electric Cooperative, you have the opportunity to take part in this unique experience - so don't miss your chance to apply.
Youth Tour is an all-expense paid, week-long trip to Washington, D.C. available to local high school juniors who live in homes that receive electric power from Sussex Rural Electric Cooperative.
More than 1,500 students from all across America take part in this unforgettable experience each year, and so can you! You'll travel to Washington, D.C. alongside your fellow New Jersey students as well as those selected by Pennsylvania's Cooperatives.
Alongside these other students, you'll have the opportunity to explore the capital's museums, memorials, and monuments. You'll have the unique chance to not only meet your state's Representatives and Senators, but sit down with them for a group discussion on Capitol Hill.
You will participate in Youth Day, where you will meet student leaders from nearly every state and hear dynamic industry leaders speak about their careers. You'll become part of a group that has more than 50,000 alumni in every walk of life, including U.S. Senators and CEOs.
2022's Youth Tour will by necessity be different from past Youth Tours, due to the state of the pandemic. It will be split into two separate sessions, meaning that half of the students attending will travel to Washington, D.C. for one week and then the other half will go a different week. New Jersey and Pennsylvania's students will take the trip from Sunday, June 19th to Friday, June 24th. This change will reduce the number of students from other states you might meet on this trip, but it does not change the profound experience that Youth Tour offers.
Sussex Rural Electric Cooperative has sponsored juniors from area high schools to embark on this journey since 1986. As an organization dedicated to strengthening our community, we are proud to have shared the opportunity for a unique, life-changing experience to our local youth for so long. New Jersey students' trips are completely paid for by Sussex Rural Electric Cooperative.
To be eligible to participate in Youth Tour, a student must:
- Be a current high school junior
- Reside in a home powered by Sussex Rural Electric Cooperative
- Attend school at one of the following eligible high schools, or be home schooled:
- High Point Regional High School
- Sussex County Technical School
- Wallkill Valley Regional High School
- Vernon Township High School
- Pope John XXIII High School
- Veritas Christian Academy
Along with your application, students must submit an essay, based on the following prompt.
Co-ops work for their members, much like our representatives in Washington, D.C. (WDC). If you are chosen to represent New Jersey during Youth Tour 2020, you will meet with members of our government. If we happened to run into a key government figure and they asked what you were doing in WDC and why your trip is important, what would you tell that government official, as our representative in WDC? You will be answering not only for yourself, your family, nor the 12,000 members of Sussex Rural Electric Cooperative, but for all rural electric cooperatives in 43 states across the country. You would be speaking for your fellow 1,700 Youth Tour students. You have five minutes to tell them of the importance of your trip to WDC and what it means to you. Tell us what you would say to them in at least 500 words.
Please submit your 500-word-minimum essay answering the question above, along with your completed application (which will be available soon), to craffay@sussexrec.com by February 18, 2020. Following this, the next step in the selection process will involve interviews with student applicants. Essays and interviews are a major part of the Youth Tour selection process and help us determine our selection of 2020's Youth Leadership Council (YLC) student representative. You can find more info on this below.
Interviews will be scheduled following the application deadline. To be eligible to participate in Youth Tour, students MUST be able to schedule an interview with us between the hours of 8 am and 4:30 pm, Monday - Friday. Please be advised that your picture will also be taken while you are here for your interview.
We are not yet accepting applications at this time
As outlined above, we will be using essays and interviews in the Youth Tour selection process. These will also be used to aid in determining the Youth Leadership Council (YLC) student representative for 2020. The YLC is a joint effort of local electric co-ops and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) that was created to provide an extension of youth activities available to states participating in the Youth Tour program. Each state is entitled to have one representative on the Youth Leadership Council. The representatives are selected by statewide Youth Tour directors through a variety of methods. The new Youth Leadership Council members are announced each year during the Youth Day program in Washington, D.C.
The YLC is designed to develop the participants' leadership and presentation skills and provide a broader understanding of electric cooperatives. All YLC members get to attend the NRECA Youth Leadership Conference in Washington, D.C. and the NRECA Annual Meeting. The 2020 NRECA Annual Meeting will be held in New Orleans. In addition, YLC members are selected from NRECA Regional Meeting host states to speak before the membership about their Youth Tour experiences.
The NRECA Youth Leadership Conference is held each summer following Youth Tour. The conference provides hands-on activities that promote individual leadership development. During the conference, participants select a spokesperson to address the membership of the NRECA Annual Meeting and the Youth Tour delegates the following sum
Please note: We will not be participating in 2022's Youth Tour program
