Smells Like Teen Spirit

I know, I know... another blog entry so soon after the last one? I just really prefer having the top post be something more positive instead of melancholy like last night's entry.

Today I made a donation to Judith Rizzio's page for AIDSWalk Portland. While there, I checked out the website of the primary benificiary Cascade AIDS Project (CAP). It was here I discovered that an era has come to an end. An era that I played a major role in. After almost two decades, the final curtain has been drawn on CAP's Teen2Teen Program.

Actual handout from the mid-90's

Twenty years ago, working with Judith and Gay (manager of CAP's Community Education Program manager at the time), I helped to create the Teen To Teen Program. We developed the curriculum, interviewed potential teen volunteers, marketed the workshops to local schools & organizations. And, to our surprise, it was incredibly successful. Like, twenty years successful! Wow. This moment is bittersweet for me. I was often proud whenever I heard the program was still around and, even though I'm still incredibly proud it carried on for so long, I feel a slight tinge of sadness knowing it's now gone.

Yes, I had to make sure I always
had "Happy Pete" and the "Purple
Vibrator" with me when I went to work.

Nowadays the idea of having peer-led programs is not only common, it's everywhere! Programs led by teens, speaking to teens, have been created to educate on the dangers of drug use, drinking & driving and texting & driving. Similar programs have teen peer educators discuss issues like suicide, bullying, cutting and sexual abuse. And many of these programs are even called Teen-to-Teen or Teen-2-Teen. But back in the day, our program was new... innovative... progressive... and controversial. Believe it or not, some parents and school district leaders didn't like the idea of a teenager taking a condom out and rolling it down onto a prop to educate their peers on proper condom use.

Lynzee & I present at the Ryan White National Youth Conference
and meet Sean Sasser from MTV's Real World: San Francisco.

By the mid-90's, I was no longer a volunteer for CAP - I was a program coordinator for the Community Education Program including Teen-to-Teen. During that time, the program really hit its stride. We took our program model out of Oregon and presented it at conferences all over the nation - conferences like the Ryan White National Youth Conference and the National Lesbian & Gay Health Conference. Depending on the budget or how many scholarships we could get, I would take as many of the teen volunteers as possible. Sometimes I presented on my own when the money wasn't there or the volunteers had important school priorities like mid-terms and prom. But whether it was me, or me and one teen, or five T2T presenters with me sitting in the back of the workshop, the events were always one of the most popular at the conferences. And things continued to grow as other organizations around the country began to call us to assist them in developing their own peer-led programs. Kansas City. Cleveland. Louisville. If those cities still have programs, they were founded with the help of our volunteers.

Teen to Teen One-Sheet - 1996

Gay Monteverde founded the program in 1992-93 and left CAP about a year later. Caleb took over after Gay left. Ena managed the entire educational program in the mid-to-late 90's then left to become a teacher. I joined her around that time but I haven't been involved in the program since I left CAP to become an HIV educational programs consultant in 1996. Jennifer Jako was a young HIV-positive volunteer who often worked with the teen volunteers. But we were not the program... not us adults. No. The engine that Teen-to-Teen ran on was made up of the teenagers who devoted their time and skills. I guess that's why it continued until this year. By allowing the teen volunteers to be heard, to contribute to the program's evolution, to tell the program managers that "kids don't use those terms anymore" - well, those things kept the workshops fresh and targeted to the audience.

I wish I had some clips of the workshops we did from those days but the internet wasn't a thing back then. And digital video cameras... hah! That's funny! But I did find some YouTube clips of Teen2Teen (yes, the name changed slightly over the years). These volunteers are awesome but I'm a little biased and have to say I hold a special place in my heart for the team I worked with in the early years.

Sam, Lora, Justin, Tri, Catalina, Lynzee, Wes, the other Sam, Jeff, Cydne, Ari, Danielle, Deana, Andrew and Tori - I hope in your adult years you still carry all the passion, energy and belief in community and giving that were the foundation of making Teen to Teen the legacy it is today. Thank you from all of us adults who learned so much from you!

AIDS/LifeCycle is a little ways off but Portland's AIDSWalk is next weekend. So maybe instead of contributing to my ride this week, think about supporting the programs at Cascade AIDS Project by donating a little to support Judith or Jennifer... or both:

Judith Rizzio's AIDSWalk Page

Jennifer Jako's AIDSWalk Page