Non profit that guides today's youth on cultivating their leadership skills Boxcar Foundation
We are one
One team. No exceptions. The Boxcar Foundation is mine.
We are a group of strong and diverse individuals unified by a clear common purpose. Our integrity and accountability define us
We know our organization flourishes or dies because of our commitment to leading with transparency and by example. We are all equal at the Boxcar Foundation. We stake our personal and professional reputations on the excellence of our work and respect of our teammates
We
are an open book
We are eager to teach and share what we know with others. As an organization we will commit to the success of our community. We evolve fast
We take risks and confront failure openly. We recognize and repeat success aggressively. We actively seek out and provide constructive criticism. Defensiveness has no place at the Boxcar Foundation. Game Changers or Youth Leadership takes many names and forms: youth voice, youth participation, youth civic engagement, youth decision making, and youth empowerment, among others. While this foundation is aimed at promoting and supporting youth as leaders, it does not hold a single definition of leadership. Instead, we encourage youth and adults to look at leadership in context and to find value in different attitudes and definitions of leadership. Research has shown that a broader, more flexible vision of leadership can play to different strengths, improving the likelihood that youth will engage in the organization and in their communities in meaningful and authentic ways. For young people, the more possibilities that seem open to them, the better their chances of finding an appropriate leadership style of their own. The Boxcar Foundation focuses on youth as leaders, it is ultimately about creating lasting social change. Leadership development is not an end but a means to participation in and the creation of a more just and equitable society in which youth are valued and have the opportunity to be productive and connected citizens who make meaningful contributions – now and throughout their lives. Our guiding framework is community youth development. When a community views young people as resources and deliberately invests its institutional and organizational resources in promoting the positive development of young people within and across contexts, it is taking a community youth development approach. This foundation is designed to act as a support for other community non-profits in terms of fundraising, volunteering, and advocacy. We want the teens to identify the causes they would like to support and be actively involved in the planning of activities. Essentsially, we are empowering game changers so they can,
CHANGE THE GAME
"When you grow up you tend to get told the world is the way it is and your life is just to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family life, have fun, save a little money. That’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact, and that is - everything around you that you call life, was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use. The minute that you understand that you can poke life and actually something will, you know if you push in, something will pop out the other side, that you can change it, you can mold it. That’s maybe the most important thing. It’s to shake off this erroneous notion that life is there and you’re just gonna live in it, versus embrace it, change it, improve it, make your mark upon it. I think that’s very important and however you learn that, once you learn it, you’ll want to change life and make it better, cause it’s kind of messed up, in a lot of ways. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again" - Steve Jobs
