After launching five years ago this month, Suttons Bay-based nonprofit Leelanau Investing For Teens (LIFT) is changing teenage lives in powerful ways.

Executive Director Rebekah TenBrink founded LIFT in 2017 when she saw a need for community investment in local teens outside of their classrooms and homes. “We invest in their evolution, autonomy and character,” she shares, noting that LIFT has committed these five years to refining “our strategy for empowerment, substance abuse prevention, and risk mitigation with local youth. We fulfill that mission by showing up every day and caring for them unconditionally.”

LIFT Associate Director Audrey Sharp grew up in Suttons Bay and graduated from Suttons Bay Schools in 2011. She estimates 150 to 200 different students have participated in a LIFT program or event. Most are students at Suttons Bay Public Schools. The program utilizes a “clubhouse” at the Friendship Community Center for after-school programs for high schoolers, and hosts programming at the middle school three days each week.

What that looks like: service learning, homework help, and outings such as a day spent painting pottery at Handz On Art in Traverse City. “Sometimes that means we hike at the Whaleback Natural Area to enjoy the sunshine,” says TenBrink.

TenBrink says they are poised to deliver more mentorship with the right support. “The community’s feedback has consistently been a desire for LIFT’s services to become equally available and accessible to the youth in the remaining areas of Leelanau County — Northport, Leland, Lake Leelanau, Cedar, Maple City, and Glen Arbor.”

She is seeking funding to expand LIFT’s services to reach students throughout Leelanau County over the next five years.

LIFT was among the 28 nonprofits, government bodies and advocacy groups seeking part of the county’s American Rescue Plan Art (ARPA) funds. She told commissioners she’s ready to replicate the program, citing “anecdotal data from both parents and staff at Suttons Bay Schools citing improvements in individual students’ demeanor, grades, and engagement.”

And by the numbers: “LIFT’s student retention rate has averaged 70 percent year-to-year for its after-school programming. Throughout the school year, we provide 120 hours of supervised time for each student who attends” — hours noted to be when students are at the highest risk for substance abuse.

Both TenBrink and Sharp tell the Leelanau Ticker that what they are seeing now in the teens — especially in the wake of the pandemic — is something even more powerful than resilience: “The narrative youth are hearing is that it’s been so hard, which it absolutely has through COVID. But we are saying, ‘now’s your time.’ They are rising up and showing the world what they are truly able and have the capacity to do.”

Sharp adds, “We can learn something from teens, always, but especially right now.”

With or without ARPA funding, TenBrink is embracing the community connections that are making LIFT’s formula work. “We are formalizing our partnership with Suttons Bay Schools starting in the 2021-22 school year. We will be implementing a daily after-school program for students in grades K-8 and adding bimonthly events for the school’s high schoolers.”

Also in the 2021-22 school year, LIFT hopes to begin a partnership with Northport Public School, beginning with a mutual collaboration with the Leelanau Historical Society.

She adds, “We’ve been having a lot of people reaching out to us recently — including other organizations — saying hey, how can we get involved in this?”

As a result, LIFT and the Leland Township Public Library organized intergenerational improv sessions. LIFT teens are the servers at The Center's community potlucks (kicking off again in April with a Middle Eastern theme). LIFT teens created a student-led LGBTQ+ organization called SB HumanKIND which gathers every Monday, occasionally joined by members of the greater community. “Many people know Alicia [Manson] and Lynsey [Egli] who had Gold Baby Biscuits in Suttons Bay and now run Ponyboy. Alicia and Lynsey are partners. They made a meal for the teens and talked about what it was like for them as teenagers.”

A recent transplant to the area, previously with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service in Marquette, heard about LIFT and asked to take a group of teens ice fishing. “Half of those kids had never walked on ice before. So, we were already in a winning situation, whether we caught fish or not,” Ross Gay told the Leelanau Ticker.

Sharp says, “We've had around 20 mentors total commit time to LIFT in the last five years and many more volunteers.” TenBrink adds, “we get to provide the underbelly of the support for these teens doing amazing things.”

Suttons Bay senior Lleyton Krumlauf joined LIFT in 7th grade. “When I was younger, it gave me opportunities to grow my creative nature while also providing me with an outlet to be a kid,” he says. “I’ve been able to create relationships and bonds with the staff of LIFT that I will have for a very long time.”

Another Suttons Bay senior, Keegan Monroe, says recently “another senior who is a frequent flyer to LIFT and I went to The Center to do a little cooking practice.” Monroe adds, “LIFT is a pretty big influence in Suttons Bay. Students that usually wouldn’t get along together go to LIFT and meet new people.”

TenBrink says it all comes back to empowering the youth of Leelanau County to become “kind leaders and engaged citizens.” She notes that Monroe called her seeking her help for an Earth Day beach cleanup he’s spearheading for his senior project. He’s recruiting fellow students and community members to head to Good Harbor after the snow melts to pick up everything that has washed up over the winter, she says. He just needed one piece to launch his plan: transportation.

“He’s leading it. We’re just driving the bus,” TenBrink says.