On Friday, Oct. 23, 2015, Marjory Stoneman Douglas’ Mentoring Tomorrow’s Leaders chapter will attend the National Youth Empowerment & Solutions Conference (Y.E.S) Teen Summit, hosted by the Trayvon Martin Foundation at the Deauville Beach Resort in Miami Beach. This empowerment summit aims to promote leadership among minority groups at schools throughout the state. Mentoring Tomorrow’s  Leaders is a state-wide program that pairs high-achieving minority upperclassmen with at-risk minority students. Through weekly tutoring and mentoring sessions, the club works to increase the graduation rates of underrepresented minorities at our school.

According to Trayvon Martin Foundation, the conference is structured to unite teens with national leaders to create solutions for the issues that plague them. At the conference, students will be given the opportunity to discuss current dilemmas and create realistic solutions in a group setting.

Also, the United States’ Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, will be in attendance; the students will even be able to meet as well as take pictures with him.

“I’m excited to meet other students from around the area and actually try to come up with solutions to problems we all face. Also meeting the country’s Secretary of Education seems pretty cool,” senior MTL Co-Historian Spencer Daum said.