These 6 Iowa high school graduates made advocacy and volunteering their mission
During high school, teens are often busy attending school, working, spending time with friends and learning their place in the world.
Across Iowa, many teens are also balancing those demands on their time with advocacy and volunteer work.
The Des Moines Register chose six graduates from the Class of 2024 who exemplify a commitment to their communities and Iowa.
The graduates were nominated by their schools and various Iowa organizations because of their work to help others. Those nominated range from youth group volunteers to LGBTQ+ activists to zoo volunteers.
Here are their stories:
Southeast Polk High School's Carmen Bahr: Service dog trainer
Carmen Bahr has been around animals her entire life: several pets, as well as a pond in the backyard that attracts frogs and geese.
So when the Southeast Polk High School senior's family tuned into a documentary about puppies destined to become guide dogs for the blind, she knew she needed to get involved.
A few years ago, the Bahrs found IOWA Service Dogs, which raises puppies to be service dogs for veterans and first responders.
Carmen's latest graduate is Jaylee, a Labrador retriever who started training in August 2021 and finished last October.
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The training involved quarterly trips out, including to a bowling alley and a pumpkin patch. Carmen and Jaylee also hit the road for the Mall of America, outside Minneapolis, and took a plane ride to San Antonio, all so Jaylee could be exposed to new things.
Service dogs have to pass tests and match with a potential client before graduating from the program. Jaylee now helps a veteran feel more comfortable with daily tasks, including helping pick up items off the floor. Jaylee gives her new owner more confidence in public, said Carmen, who turns 18 May 11.
Jaylee's graduation was bittersweet: It was sad after working with Jaylee for over two years, Carmen said, but "it's so rewarding to see how it can change someone's life."
Carmen now plans to study organizational leadership at the University of Northern Iowa, where she wants to start a similar program and train another dog. She has also volunteered at Blank Park Zoo, working with guests and helping zookeepers with animals, including seals, penguins, goats and giraffes.
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Ahead of graduation, Carmen more than tripled the hours she needed for the school's optional volunteer program, earning a silver cord for the ceremony.
"It's just always been part of me," Carmen said. "I always grew up around animals and having animals everywhere, so it's just super fun to be able and go and interact with them in different ways and learn more about them."
Johnston High School's Abby Harris: Zoo volunteer
Abby Harris sits on the Johnston school board as a student representative. She files public records requests and works events for Annie's Foundation, a group that opposes book bans in Iowa. She coaches track and mock trial at the middle school.
She also got a summer gig working with alpacas at the zoo.
The 17-year-old Johnston High School senior has volunteered at Blank Park Zoo for five years: doing animal care, interacting with guests, helping with education programs and more ahead of her summer job. She's also volunteered at Rusty Stars Alpacas in Winterset, which has been her favorite opportunity in terms of sheer enjoyment and interacting with people.
But coaching at the middle school lets Abby give back to younger generations. And serving on the school board may be the most beneficial for her future goals in life: perhaps working as a constitutional attorney in human rights, or sticking with education law for a school district.
The most meaningful? Her work for Annie's Foundation. Abby's mom is also involved with the group. Abby said she really likes helping people and staying involved.
"It's what gives me joy and meaning in life, is interacting with other people and giving back to our community," she said.
Abby also strives to create an environment where people want to learn and engage.
"It's all about helping other people and building a better Des Moines area," Abby said. "I really care about building a community where everyone feels safe and included and welcome and heard and seen."
She plans to attend Grinnell College and plans to double major in history and gender/women's studies, with a concentration in educational policy. Then law school for constitutional or educational law.
Ahead of graduation, Abby went well above the 150 hours needed for her school's optional volunteer program to snag a silver cord for the ceremony.
Johnston High School's Emma Hattel: Church youth group leader
Emma Hattel’s faith steered her toward volunteering with Lutheran Church of Hope’s PowerLife program.
Emma took part in the program from sixth through eighth grade. She credits her grandparents for her faith.
She began volunteering her sophomore year to work with the girls in the program, which can be part of a teen’s confirmation process. For several months a year, volunteers meet at the church on Wednesday nights to hand out that evening’s materials and get ready to work with the teens.
Emma works with several volunteers to help guide the girls. She has wanted to be a leader in the group since she was a member a few years ago.
“Being able to do that, it makes my heart warm and happy because faith is something that's important to me,” the 17-year-old Johnston High School senior said.
After the evening worship, Emma would go with the group of about six girls and several volunteers to the church’s lower level to work through discussion questions about the service. The time was also used to let the teens talk about their lives before a final prayer.
As one of the group leaders, Emma sometimes had to help her young charges work through questions such as “How do you know if God is really there?”
To balance school and volunteering, she uses her free periods in school to do her homework, but sometimes she would have to finish up school assignments after church. The time she felt the most pressure was while taking DMACC classes and then rushing home to get ready for church. She plans to attend Iowa State after graduation.
With college on the horizon, her time volunteering for the program is coming to an end. Earlier this month, the girls from her group presented their faith statements to members of the congregation and were confirmed a few days later.
“It's like, wow, I really just helped them along their faith journey and get confirmed,” Emma said. “This is what we've been preparing them for.”
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Burlington High School's Selena Janssens: LGBTQ+ and foster care advocate
Burlington High School Senior Selena Janssens, who is nonbinary, felt called to bring the community together after they learned from an Instagram post that Iowa passed a ban on gender affirming care for minors.
"I went downstairs to my mom, and I was asking her … ‘What can I do?'" Selena said. "Because I was thinking about my friend — who was also a trans woman — and what are we going to do for these kids that are just out here?"
Selena plans to change their last name to Herrera when they turn 18.
They felt hopeless about the situation.
“You can advocate. You can inform people,” Selena's foster mom told them. “You can spread the word, and you can get it out there.”
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With the help of Burlington High School's gay-straight alliance sponsor, the two began planning the "Right to be: an LGBTQ+ Rally." The event was not associated with the Burlington Community School District.
As planning progressed, people began to volunteer food and water, a place for the event and even DJ services, Selena said. Drag kings and queens traveled from all over the state to perform.
The day of the event was cloudy, and Selena worried it might rain. In the end, the rain held off and about 75 people showed up to watch the performers and listen to speeches.
Selena called the experience “pure bliss.”
“It just really makes me feel like I did something amazing and that it's just the best feeling ever,” they said.
They are working on organizing another rally for June 29.
Sometimes the 17-year-old's advocacy work took them away from school.
In December 2023, the teen sat in a Washington, D.C., hotel room working on a physical science assignment about tectonic plates the night before a scheduled meeting with Iowa lawmakers as an ambassador for the Iowa National Youth in Transition Database. Selena was there to speak about the experience of teens who age out of the foster care system.
They woke up at 6 a.m. to see they had fallen asleep next to their open laptop.
After returning home, Selena learned U.S. Rep. Zach Nunn was working on legislation to address several foster care issues.
The Fight for Foster Siblings Act, also known as House File HR7912, touches on several of the issues Selena and others lobbied for, said a representative from Nunn’s office. The bill was introduced April 9.
They called the news “heartbreaking, (but) not in a bad way.”
To work through their complicated feelings, Selena wrote a letter to their mom — who died around the same time they entered foster care — about the visit to D.C.
“I just said, ‘Mom, I love you. I'm so proud of myself and I hope you are too,” Selena said.
Selena’s advocacy work often causes them to reflect on their own life.
“I look at younger me and I think about all that happened to me,” they said. “I think about the trauma and the happiness and the sadness, everything, and that just really puts it in perspective that other kids are going through that … Another big thing is my biological mother. I want to make her proud, but I also don't want to end up like her. And that's the biggest reason why I do what I do.”
Selena plans to attend Southeastern Community College after graduation.
Northwest High School's Tyler Pittman: LGBTQ+ advocate
Tyler Pittman juggles a lot as a student and an advocate for Iowa's LGBTQ+ students, including with Iowa Safe Schools and the Iowa Queer Student Alliance.
“I've definitely had days where I'm supposed to be focusing on schoolwork, but I'm literally listening to a (state legislative) committee meeting, you know, at the same time,” Tyler said.
Tyler, 17, of Urbandale, who identifies as nonbinary, said there have been times when they’ve attended late afternoon committee meetings after school.
They’ve also been president of Waukee’s Northwest High School’s alliance of LGBTQ+ and non-LGBTQ+ ally students, helped organize a back-to-school pride festival last fall with a $10,000 grant from the It Gets Better Project and have been an editor for their high school’s student news website.
That's in addition to Tyler publicly changing their name several months ago to match their gender identity.
“I think people here have handled (the change) with grace. I think I have handled (it) with grace as well," they said. "So, it's been difficult, but I've never really received any sort of pushback or anything. Folks are pretty nice.”
If Tyler could go back and tell their freshman self something, it would be: “‘It’s OK to be different. It doesn't make you a harder person to be friends with. It doesn't mean that you're worth any less.’”
Tyler will study political science on a law track at the University of Iowa. They’re interested in civil rights law and said it would be a dream to work for the American Civil Liberties Union.
Johnston High School's Siddarth Rajkumar: Mediator of knowledge
Siddarth Rajkumar does not think of himself as a mentor, but he is a coach and a tutor among the other volunteer work he’s done in high school.
Siddarth said rather than being a mentor to people younger than him, “I just feel like I’m a mediator of knowledge” — someone who’s just passing information as someone who’s learned to someone who will learn.
But the 18-year-old Johnston High School student said his most meaningful volunteer work — being a swim coach at Johnston Middle School — has mattered because he’s gotten to share the benefits swimming has had for his own mental health.
When he dealt with body image issues and social anxiety, Siddarth said practice “helped me focus on improving my skill rather than focusing on myself.”
Siddarth said he welcomes getting to turn off his brain when he’s in the water. Practice “gives me an opportunity to unwind and relax and kind of get my thoughts out before I focus on just life in general and also school.”
Coaching middle school students in swimming is continuing the cycle of coaching that he was part of and helps lay the foundation for a strong high school team, he said.
Siddarth has also remotely tutored a student in Ukraine in English for about a year and a half through a program called ENGin. Ukrainian student partners in the program are known as buddies, and “my buddy sometimes couldn’t make it to lessons because of (air alert) sirens or other bombings that were happening. So, it was definitely a concern that she might not be safe, and until I could get that text from her and make sure she’s OK, it’s a bit anxious."
His older sister had tutored through the program first, and then his AP World History class in sophomore year got him interested in exploring a different culture and spurred him to look into ENGin. “I’ve enjoyed getting to know a culture that’s different from mine and just exploring how people celebrate their traditions in different ways,” he said.
Siddarth has also helped stock supplies and make small things like bouquets to cheer up patients at UnityPoint Health Iowa Lutheran Hospital, and helped tend the Johnston High School garden.
He wants to study molecular and cellular biology in college but had not decided where between the three schools on his shortlist.
Samantha Hernandez covers education for the Register. Reach her at (515) 851-0982 or svhernandez@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @svhernandez or Facebook at facebook.com/svhernandezreporter.
Phillip Sitter covers the western suburbs for the Des Moines Register. Phillip can be reached via email at psitter@gannett.com or on X, formerly known as Twitter, at @pslifeisabeauty.
Chris Higgins covers the eastern and northern suburbs for the Register. Reach him at chiggins@registermedia.com or 515-423-5146 and follow him on Twitter @chris_higgins_
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Meet six Iowa high school grads who went above and beyond as advocates
