Richmond, Lincoln and Northeastern high school students will develop school or community projects after attending the Wayne County Youth Summit.

During the March 20 event at Indiana University East, students heard presentations from the Purdue University Community Transition Team and Gene Hambrick, the senior executive director for the Center for Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Creativity at Earlham College. Students were guided through a strategic framework for development of a project and learned how to craft and deliver an elevator pitch.

Each school received $500 to help with project execution.

“The Youth Summit is about showing high school students that Wayne County cares about them and values their voice,” said Carl Rhinehart III, a co-founder of Future Achievers, which organizes the summit. “We want to empower them with the skills and resources they need to become leaders who can create positive change in their schools and communities.”

The Youth Summit began in 2022, and Future Achievers took over organization in
2023.

Chris Hardie took these photos of the event for WWN.

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A version of this article appeared in the March 26 2025 print edition of the Western Wayne News.