The youth in Texarkana are the building blocks of the future. The Texarkana Youth Advisory Council (TYAC) is an organization that provides students with many opportunities to improve and influence the city. On Thursday, March 20, 2025, two Texas High School seniors were selected to be a part of this influential youth council organization. 

‘It’s a small community where young people of Texarkana get the chance to be involved in seeing how the city’s planning goes on,” senior secretary Viridiana Escalera said. “ [They get] hands-on experience with volunteer opportunities around Texarkana. There’s some that I didn’t know we would do, and I would get involved.”

This organization left a significant impact on the students involved, allowing them to continue to prepare for the future, solve community problems and influence those around them.

“It’s prepared me more for adulthood and how the City Council works,” senior president Chloe Hill said. “[It allowed me to know] how you present a problem to the council members and the mayor, and things that you want to see happening in your community.”

The organization also gives other opportunities for volunteering like traveling and doing community work around the city.

“We get to go see other youth advisory councils and what they’re doing,” Hill said. “We can see how they’re trying to benefit their community, volunteering and helping out with the homeless people.”

TYAC remains incredibly beneficial to high schoolers because it provides a chance to voice their opinions and concerns from an alternative perspective while sharing information with peers.

“This helps me and the youth by having an opinion instead of just all adults in different situations,” Escalera said. “I get a view of not only how this affects me, but my classmates as well because I get to talk to them about different city plans.”