The Second Annual State Competition Award Ceremony was held at Target Field on May 20th, 2018. This event was attended by over 100 YES! students, coaches, staff, and supporters from 3 Youth Energy Summit (YES!) teams. Teams represented the following communities; Northern Lights, Sleepy Eye, and Sartell. YES! works hard to bring opportunities like these to its students where they can showcase the hard work they do throughout the school year to be better stewards of the earth. Students were escorted onto the Twins field near home base during the pregame show.
Twenty-nine YES! teams across the state participated in their Regional Spring Competition. Four teams were presented with the All-Star Award for their high scores in teamwork, goal setting, community engagement, ecological impact & literacy, and creativity and innovation in carrying out their eco action projects. Receiving the All-Star Award entered the teams into the State Championships. This year, Northern Lights Community School was awarded the 2018 State Champion Award for their dedication to their project, their outstanding teamwork, and their work on a real world problems. One judge said the Northern Lights Community Schools YES! Team “students all seemed empowered and responsible, congratulations!” Another judge said “The work the students put in… shows their dedication to the future generations. They did some really impressive work and very different from what I have seen in the past projects.” Also, another judge said “This team did a wonderful job of engaging with environmental issues across the board.” 
Della Young, an LCCMR Commissioner, presented the YES! State Champion award to the Northern Lights Community School YES!team!
We can’t wait to see what next year brings as many teams will continue their important work and new teams will join the program. The State Competition has put a fire under the teams to try even harder and reach even further next year to complete their goals and projects. Congratulations to all the teams involved in the various competitions this year as each teams’ dedication, innovation, and passion was evident throughout every project they completed.
Major support for the YES! program is from the Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund (ENTF) and the McKnight Foundation.
