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SALT LAKE CITY — Teenagers in Utah are being recognized for doing great things, and their rewards are big.
Each month, a Utah teen wins the Teen Hero 12 contest and is awarded with gift cards, prizes, flowers, balloons, an official teen hero certificate and $500 that will go toward either a charitable cause of their choice or a charity they would like to start, according to Teen Hero 12 director Jessie Funk.
In addition to those prizes, the winners will meet with Attorney General Sean Reyes and tell him what they will do to use their leadership skills to change the world and they will appear on Studio 5, Funk said.
“We want to celebrate kids who are currently leaders, who are doing great things on student council, who have started their own business, who have overcome something really challenging and are a positive force for good in their school,” she said. “And then we also want to celebrate kids who want to be leaders, kids who might not have had all of the opportunities to develop their leadership skills, but they’re wanting to step into that.”
The contest began in March, and 14-year-old Adriana Ramirez won. Ramirez has faced health challenges and “has been relentlessly bullied” since she was in second grade, Funk said.
“The reason why we chose her is because she made such a courageous decision at … such a young age of 14 to start speaking out about it,” Funk said.
Ramirez has been involved in school supplies drives for charity, spoken at assemblies and tried to raise awareness of bullying.
In April, Armani McFarland won the contest. McFarland started a charity called One Can Make A Change as a 12-year-old and collects jeans for homeless teenagers and school supplies for underprivileged children. “She’s just a total little firecracker, she’s just absolutely incredible, she’s done multiple news interviews, I mean she’s already just doing amazing things, so we wanted to celebrate both types of kids like I mentioned, so both of these girls are great examples of that,” Funk said.
To nominate a teen hero, post a picture of a teen between ages 12 and 19 on social media with an explanation of why you are nominating them with the hashtag #teenhero12. Nominations are required to be in by the 25th of each month.
In January, the teen heroes from each month will be honored at a black tie gala, which will include the teens riding in a limousine and walking on a red carpet with paparazzi.
“The whole point of it is that other kids will see it, they’ll see that these kids are being awarded and celebrated, and we want to spread the message that kindness is cool, doing good things is cool, and the other kids who are trying to figure out who they are will be able to look at that and say, 'You know what? Maybe I want to be like that,'” Funk said.
