This afternoon I walked into the kitchen to grab the comics out of the Plain Dealer but while I was leafing through the pile, it was the Forum section, oddly enough, that caught my eye. It was a simple, gray picture of the wind turbine downtown. I opened up the page to glance at it and read the title underneath: Can Cleveland Change? I scoffed, thinking to myself ‘How on earth do these people not get it already? Of course Cleveland can change, it’s not like we’re even that bad to begin with. Really. Why do people keep dwelling on this issue in a negative light?’ But then I realized that maybe I was seeing things through a different set of eyes.

I recently graduated from a leadership program called Look Up To Cleveland. It’s a program for high school juniors from around Cuyahoga County run by the Cleveland Leadership Center, an organization that works to foster civic engagement in the Greater Cleveland area. The kids come from all kinds of places, backgrounds, and schools: John Marshall, Gilmour Academy, Collinwood High School, and Parma Senior High, for example. Out of about 150 applicants, 55 of us were chosen. All of us were from different high schools. What resulted was a group of people with varying social, economic, racial, and religious backgrounds – an accurate reflection of Cleveland’s population.

After our initial overnight retreat, we met once a month to explore a specific aspect of Cleveland. We got out of school for the day and, either by foot or by bus, we were introduced to various characteristics of downtown Cleveland. We learned about the economy, arts and culture, neighborhoods, and government. We went to places like the Federal Courthouse, PlayHouse Square, Karamu House, Forest City Enterprises, the Corner Alley, KeyBank, MOCA, The Plain Dealer, and City Hall among others. We met significant Cleveland leaders like Mayor Frank Jackson and County Commissioner Peter Lawson Jones, in addition to the directors of the various places and programs we visited.

In April, we split into three teams and were assigned to three different Cleveland districts. Each group set out to accomplish some general goals with our principal objective of creating a plan to developing our plot of land according to what we saw and heard while in our district. Throughout the course of numerous meetings in April and May, we went on a walking tour of our assigned area, explored the inside of many buildings in that district, and interviewed both business owners and people on the street about the area.

My group was assigned the Warehouse District and East Bank of the Flats. The district extended from the Cuyahoga River to East 9th Street and from Lake Erie to Superior Avenue. In our interviews we heard about many common needs (more parking, more daily activity, keeping people and businesses in the area) and some common positives of the area (the bar/restaurant scene, the cleanliness outside, the faithful customers).

Through these opinions and our own experience walking around the area, we came up with a plan for development which we called the Northern Lights District. Our presentation included audio (“Cleveland Rocks” – both a song and a fact), visual (maps, collages, and a PowerPoint presentation), and plenty of enthusiasm (especially from our Midpark and Bay Village cheerleaders). We were very proud of our efforts and we could tell our Reactor Panelists, four esteemed civic and city managers, were pretty impressed with what we’d come up with, as well.

Yet, what we took away from that program was more than just a diploma, an award, some pictures, and plenty of memories. We were taken out of our comfort zones and our perceptions changed. As a middle-class, Catholic, white girl from Lakewood High School who’d grown up knowing the comfort of an inner ring suburb, my perception of Cleveland hadn’t exactly been too postive. I admit I was slightly intimidated by the thought of riding the rapid downtown. I had never seen a show at the House of Blues. I didn’t know that riding the trolley around downtown only cost a smile. I didn’t realize that I could have taken the bus from Public Square to East 14th Street and Euclid (I walked, instead).

But among the businessmen and women, the theatergoers and the sports fans, the torrential downpours and below-freezing temperatures my LUTC class endured, it finally clicked. Cleveland has so much to offer. Sure, the economy may be bad, the crime rate may be uncomfortably high, but those are only apparent when people focus on the negative.

After being immersed in Cleveland in every way possible, we realized that Cleveland has great things to offer and everyone should take advantage of them. With an abundance of creative individuals and their ideas, we can take our city and make it a place that others want to be a part of too. First we must discover. Then we can change. That will be our job as the future leaders of Cleveland.

In my group’s Northern Lights presentation, together we stated ‘We Are Cleveland.’ And it’s the truth. Why us, though? Why this specific group of kids? It’s because the team at the Leadership Center has the right idea. They find dedicated groups of high school juniors that want to discover Cleveland, come up with incredible ideas, and change our city for the better. As Margaret Mead said: ‘Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.’

Going through this program has taught me many things, introduced me to many new ideas, and answered many questions I had. As a matter of fact, it happened today. When someone posed the question ‘Can Cleveland Change?' I knew the answer right away: of course.

Mary Beth Donahoe will be a senior at Lakewood High School and is this year’s recipient of the Look Up To Cleveland Allen Waddle Award, an award given for excellence in the LUTC program. For more information about Look Up To Cleveland, please visit www.cleveleads.org.