See Beautiful Grant Applicant: Pebble Tossers

The feature below is brought to you by Pebble Tossers, an organization that is in the running to receive a See Beautiful Grant. For more information about our giving initiatives, please click here.
 
To learn more about the featured organization, please visit their website here.

Rainbows of peace

ROYGBIV. Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet. These are the colors of the rainbow that we learned in kindergarten. Each color stands strong alone, but together, they create a beautiful wonder to behold.

Recently, other letter groups have been circulating around - DEIJP. What do these letters stand for? Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Peace, Justice.  The events throughout 2020 bring more meaning to each of these words. Each word has power alone, but when working together, they can represent a beautiful world. How can we create a rainbow in our world through diversity, equity, inclusion, justice and peace?
Pebble Tossers, a youth development nonprofit with a mission to equip and empower youth to lead through service, brings together youth from all socio-economic backgrounds to serve those most vulnerable in our community, regardless of their skin color, position in society or last name. 

Pebble Tossers partners with nonprofits all around Atlanta, linking volunteers to service projects and organizing our own projects covering 12 major cause areas including The Arts, Animals, Citizenship, Education and Literacy, Elderly, Environment, Families in Crisis, Fragile Children, Global Awareness, Homeless, Hunger, and US Troops and Veterans. Pebble Tossers recognizes a community-wide need and provides service-related youth development programming including socio-emotional learning, character-building and leadership development workshops and enrichment opportunities. 

Our causes are global, local, and societal and our individual and family volunteers come from all walks of life and bring valuable diversity. These programs help youth serve, lead and succeed through hands-on experiences. Through our weekly service projects, we introduce community needs to youth and families. Teaching kids that they can have a voice and can take responsibility for helping others empowers them to want to learn more about who they are helping and why people may find themselves in certain situations.
Pebble Tossers reinforces dignity by teaching that everyone we serve deserves to be treated with respect and with a smile.

Valuable lessons of diversity, equity and inclusion happen through small moments, like sharing a s’more with someone experiencing homelessness. It’s hard not to smile at someone taking their first bite of the tasty marshmallow, chocolate and graham cracker treat.  That s’more and smile lead to an introduction and a conversation. Our youth volunteers walk away from that experience with a new outlook and also more questions.  Once you see, you can’t unsee. They can see beautiful and see the value in each person they serve and also in those they serve alongside.

During a team meeting, an intern mentioned that she wished she had the opportunity to be a part of an organization like Pebble Tossers when she was younger. She shared that as a middle school student, she remembers the death of Trayvon Martin and how sad and helpless she and her friends felt. As kids, they brought Skittles and Arizona tea to school to do something, to show their solidarity in some way.  She wished that she had something like our Teen Leadership Program that would empower her with knowledge of what she could do by actively engaging in community service. She could have had a platform to speak out as well as access to other resources.

Pebble Tossers engages with young people where they are developmentally and demographically. This alone broadens the scope by which our youth see the world. In turn, they become empathetic and turn that empathy into action.  Through our Teen Leadership Program (TLP) we focus on social-emotional learning to help young leaders become confident and self-aware to see the beauty within themselves, others, and the world around them. Our TLP centers around an ethical skillset: self-management, relationship skills, responsible decision making, and both social and self-awareness.  Teaching this skillset allows us to foster their creativity and passion to fuel service so they become active leaders in the community and society at large.

Every third Sunday, we have a  guest speaker talk to the TLP about leadership and their particular field. In preparation for these guest speakers, we present the teens with an ethical dilemma to ponder and respond to. This fall, retired NFL player, Malcolm Mitchell, discussed the importance of literacy and how he came to success. Mr. Mitchell encouraged the youth to “think about what you would’ve needed and give it to someone else”. Throughout his discussion, Mr. Mitchell shared his life experiences and lessons he learned when he was in school. The teens asked him questions and for advice in their own pursuits. At the end, breakout rooms were formed where the teens conversed and brainstormed ideas for service projects that would be done in the coming year.

Aside from monthly meetings, we also engage with the teens through life-skill workshops, peer-to-peer collaboration, and fun out-of-the-box ways to develop their leadership. We strive to shape youth into social-emotional intelligent, altruistic leaders. Pebble Tossers recognizes the vast array of resources young people now have at their disposal and their overall passion for world change. By engaging kids in service at a young age, we’re able to assist in identifying their passions and finding ways to make a positive impact surrounding them. 

Pebble Tossers recognizes the power that comes with motivation, but we also know it’s what happens in the valleys of life that truly make a leader.  Overall, we encourage and empower youth to see the beauty in themselves as well as the potential and power they have to make this world a better place. With this, they can see the true beauty in the world and the endless possibilities for rainbows of peace. We are teaching this generation to be empathetic and ethical global citizens who will “start a ripple of giving”, fueled by kindness, inclusivity, justice and compassion.

Submitted by Jennifer Guynn