Youth Tour 2023 Heads to Washington, D.C.

Students from the area and across America will be back in the nation’s capital for Youth Tour in 2023.

The Virginia, Maryland & Delaware Association of Electric Cooperatives, partnering with local power providers like Southside Electric Cooperative, will take high school students to Washington, D.C., next summer. Because of the pandemic, Youth Tour participants have not visited the nation’s capital since 2019.

However, with concerns lessened about the pandemic and most restrictions lifted, the 2023 Electric Cooperative Youth Tour will be in D.C. Monday through Friday, June 19-23. Some 70 students and chaperones from cooperatives in Virginia, Maryland and Delaware are expected to join with participants from numerous other states to experience the sights and sounds of Washington, D.C.

SEC will take six high school juniors and have two chaperones, and it is not too early to start thinking about going. The Cooperative will pay all the expenses for its students.

Trip coordinators met in September to begin mapping out plans for the trip. Already on tap are visits to the Lincoln Memorial, Jefferson Memorial, African American Museum and Arlington National Cemetery, a Washington Nationals game, an evening at the theater, a dinner cruise on the Potomac River and tour of an electric cooperative in Maryland. Participants will spend one day on Capitol Hill, meeting with their legislators and learning more about how the federal government operates. The 2023 trip closely resembles Youth Tours before COVID-19.

“It will be fantastic to take students back to Washington, D.C., for Youth Tour,” says Joy Stump, a community relations coordinator at SEC and one of the chaperones. “We will experience all the excitement and fun of being in our nation’s capital, the museums and historic sites, meeting our members of Congress, wonderful restaurants and getting to know students from all over the United States. I encourage high school juniors across our service area to consider applying.”

Any high school junior who lives and attends school (or homeschool) in the Cooperative’s 18-county service area is eligible to apply for the all-expenses-paid trip. Students’ parents or guardians do not have to receive electricity from SEC.

Students must fill out an application and submit a written essay. The essay, which should be no more than 500 words, should explain an issue the applicant is interested in that could be discussed with a legislator. Students should describe the issue, why they are interested in it and suggest a question they would ask a legislator about the topic. Applications and essays must be received at SEC’s headquarters in Crewe or at one of the district offices in Altavista, Crewe, Dinwiddie or Powhatan by Jan. 31, 2023. Applicants will be interviewed in February, and SEC’s delegation will be chosen by March 1.

Find an application, complete rules and more information at sec.coop/YouthTour. Information is also available from guidance counselors at high schools in the Cooperative service area. 

Youth Tour is a long-standing cooperative tradition. Since around 1960, America’s electric cooperatives have sponsored high school students to visit the nation’s capital. Youth Tour’s overall sponsor is the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, which represents more than 900 consumer-owned, not-for-profit electric cooperatives that serve 42 million Americans in 47 states.

Anyone with questions about this year’s trip should visit SEC’s website or contact chaperones and SEC community relations coordinators Joy Stump at 434-645-3219 or joy.stump@sec.coop or Mark Thomas at 434-645-3276 or mark.thomas@sec.coop.