The Saint Paul Youth Commission demands a lot from its teenage volunteers in both time and commitment, but it also provides something that no other youth program can — a chance to participate directly in the decisionmaking process of a major U.S. city.

It's a responsibility this year's slate of Youth Commissioners say they're taking seriously as they work together to craft social action plans through a trio of subcommittees on issues important to them: public transit, bullying and sex trafficking.

Under the official aegis of the Saint Paul Parks and Recreation Dept., the 22 high-school-age Youth Commissioners have been given a budget, thanks to a $30,000 grant from the Saint Paul Children's Collaborative and the nonprofit Youthprise, and it's up to them to decide how best to use it to tackle their issues, whether it be designing pilot programs, carrying out research, setting up educational conferences or making direct donations to charities and service providers they feel are doing important work in the field.

The program is unique in that respect because it goes beyond just learning about issues to having teens actually design and participate in the nitty-gritty of social activism, said Tabitha Mitchell, who supervises the program for the city parks department.

"That's the really amazing part," she said. "They're in the trenches doing the work to create social change. They don't get paid for any of this."

All along the way, their work is monitored by not only the Parks & Rec department, but also St. Paul's City Council, the mayor's office and state legislators, and the commission's conclusions are studied and considered by the city's top political leaders.

But in exchange for the access, the volunteers of the Youth Commission are expected to make a serious commitment in terms of time and effort. They must not only attend weekly meetings, usually held Monday nights at downtown St. Paul's Central Library, but also be available for field trips to sites around city and to spend personal time thinking about their chosen issues.

Even though that can be a challenge for teens already busy with school, jobs, homework, extracurricular activities and active social lives, it's proven no problem for a pair of this year's youth commissioners, who say they are motivated by passion for their issues.

Sebastian Alfonzo, 15, a sophomore at Central High School in St. Paul, is in his second year on the Youth Commission and is working on its public transit subcommittee on ways to educate his peers on the advantages of using the Metro Transit bus and train system, which he says has the power to change their lives.

"We are trying to raise youth ridership on the public transit system," he said. "We think it's a very valuable resource that not enough students are taking advantage of."

His group is running a pilot program at two St. Paul public schools, where it will be giving away free, yearlong bus passes to students, then tracking their usage to collect data and personal stories.

"Our goal is to use that data to strengthen our case to the school board about using the public bus system instead of the yellow school buses," Sebastian said. "Using public transit makes you self-dependent. I don't have to rely on parents anywhere for rides.

"Say you have to stay after school and they're working — it doesn't matter, I can stay after school. It not only empowers me, but it can allow me flexibility no matter what my parents are doing. It's a valuable resource in a bunch of ways."

The Youth Commission's antibullying subcommittee is also doing some valuable work, says member Quinn Graham, 17, a senior at Nova Classical Academy in St. Paul.

"We're working on an antibullying peer mediation program and a bystander training program based at the St. Paul public rec centers," he said. "With the peer mediation program, a peer of the victim and the bully would step in and talk about how to resolve the dispute and how to move forward."

Meanwhile, the bystander training program will teach teens how to take action when they see their peers being bullied and move to de-escalate the situation by encouraging bystanders to urge the bully to stop, rather than egging him on.

"That's a very effective way to stop bullies," said Quinn, who added that both he and some other subcommittee members are partly motivated because they themselves were victims of bullying in elementary and junior high school. □