Several weeks ago, in the Silver City Daily Press, I wrote about Freeport-McMoRan and the question of economic transformation in Grant County. At the end of that piece, I asked a simple question:

Who is going to pick up the ball?

The responses I got were mostly that people enjoyed my articles. Only Freeport McMoran offered to pick up the ball. Perhaps the rest of us assumed that those already in positions of leadership would continue to be the ones carrying the ball forward.

The more I think about it, the more I believe that assumption may be wrong. The future of Grant County does not belong to those of us in our60s, 70ss, and 80s. We may help shape it. We may help finance it. We may help guide it. But we will not live in it as long as the people who are now 25, 35, and 40 years old.

If Grant County is going to reinvent itself over the next 20 years, the people who will spend those 20 years here must become the ones leading the effort. That raises another question. How do we get younger people involved? The answer is not by demanding it. It is not by telling them they need to show up at meetings. It is not by lecturing them about civic responsibility. It is not by creating committees and then inviting them to sit quietly at the end of the table while the rest of us make the decisions.

Most of us didn't become invested in our communities because someone assigned us a seat on a committee. We became invested, because we had something at stake. We had ownership. We had responsibility. We had the opportunity to succeed or fail based on our own decisions. In other words, we had skin in the game.

Young people in Grant County are no different. If we want them to help build the future, we must stop asking them to participate in our vision and start helping them create their own. That means giving away something many of us are reluctant to surrender: power. Not symbolic power. Real power. The power to control budgets. The power to launch projects. The power to make mistakes. The power to try something new even when older generations are not completely convinced.

For decades, communities across America have approached leadership development backward. We ask young people to prove themselves before we trust them with authority. Then we wonder why they leave. What if we reversed the process? What if we trusted them first? What if Grant County established a Youth Investment Fund controlled by residents under 40? What if a portion of local philanthropic dollars were placed under the direction of emerging leaders who could fund projects they believe will strengthen the community? What if local organizations reserved voting seats on boards for younger members and gave those seats the same authority as everyone else's? What if we created a countywide Emerging Leaders Council with a real budget and the ability to sponsor initiatives rather than simply advise others? What if we treated leadership as something people learn by doing rather than something they earn after waiting their turn?

I can already hear some objections. What if they make mistakes? Of course they will. So did we. Every generation has. The question is not whether mistakes will happen. The question is whether Grant County can afford another generation that feels disconnected from its future. The larger truth is this: economic transformation is not primarily about money. It is about ownership. People invest their energy where they have ownership. People stay where they have ownership. People build where they have ownership. And people fight for communities they believe belong to them.

If we want younger residents to remain here, start businesses here, raise families here, create art here, and lead here, we must create pathways for ownership that are visible, meaningful, and immediate. The goal is not to tell young people what Grant County should become. The goal is to give them enough influence that they can help answer that question themselves.

Over the next several columns, I want to explore practical ways this could happen. Not theories. Not slogans. Actual structures that transfer social, political, and financial power to the next generation. Because if we truly want someone else to pick up the ball, eventually we have to stop holding onto it.

We have to hand it over.

Jim Charleston
President
Silver City Theatre