2025 Summit

In 2025, the OHIO YAB and ACTION Ohio planned and facilitated a Leadership and Life Skills Summit for Current and Former Foster Youth, with support from the Ohio Children’s Alliance, the Department of Children and Youth, the Dave Thomas Foundation and The Ohana Project and Congregation Beth Tikvah.

The 2025 Leadership and Life Skills Summit took place:

Date: Tuesday, June 17, 2025
Time: 9 am – 4 pm
Location: Crowne Plaza Columbus North Worthington, 6500 Doubletree Ave., Columbus OH 43229

Youth and young adults from the following counties participated: Allen, Ashland, Athens, Clermont, Cuyahoga, Franklin, Geauga, Hamilton, Lake, Lorain, Lucas, Montgomery, Muskingum, Portage, Richland and Stark. 

Here are links to the:

Event Schedule:

  • 9:00 am – Arrival: Beverages, Snacks
  • 9:30 am – Opening Session: Welcome and Purpose of Event
  • 10:00 am – Breakout Session A
  • 11:00 am – Breakout Session B
  • Noon – Lunch
  • 1:00 pm – Breakout Session C
  • 2:00 pm – Breakout Session D
  • 3:00 pm – Raffle Hosted by The Ohana Project
  • 4:00 pm – Departure

The Summit included a Wellness Area called “Exhale” which was designed by OHIO YAB members to provide a safe space for young people to relax, paint rocks, journal, and learn some yoga and breathing techniques. Room set-up included fairy lights, an essential oil diffuser, LED Votive Candles, and a Tabletop Water Fountain. Activities included decorating journals, painting rocks and bags to write how youth leaders plan to “exhale” in 2025.

Annie Curtis of Columbus Public Health and Holly Jones, the creator and maintainer of the Wellness Project, brought yoga mats, blocks, cushions, speakers to play music, coping skill packets, brochures about healing from trauma, and mindfulness activities for participating youth and young adults.

We are deeply grateful to The Ohana Project for their support of the Summit by providing AMAZING raffle prizes! These included an Electric Scooter 28-mile range, a 50″ 4K Roku Smart TV, an HP Chromebook Touch in Lavender, an HP Chromebook in Silver, an Apple Watch, a Samsung Watch, Beats Headphones, a Beats Pill speaker and more!

Thanks to support from Congregation Beth Tikvah, we had 25 Kitchen Essentials baskets for the raffle, to support transition-age youth. Many thanks to Kristin Camac and Kim Eckhart for helping to store and transport these beautiful baskets, which were initially donated during a Mitzvah Day in April.

Through the Suits for Success Initiative, young people in and from foster care were able to try on and keep professional clothing items. We deeply appreciate help behind the scenes with Suits for Success transportation by the Department of Children and Youth and the Ohio Children’s Alliance. Special thanks goes to Velda Hofacker for storing these clothing items and to foster care alumni Dauntea Sledge for driving the U-Haul van both days.

Resource tables during the event included: Bridges, DCY, ESSA, ETV, FosterHub, Fostering Achievement Network, The Ohana Project, Ohio Medicaid, Ohio Reach, Trades Institute, Youth Navigator Network, and the Youth Ombudsman.