APPLETON — A group of Menasha High School freshmen can’t wait to refurbish a study hall. Their counterparts in Hortonville hope to create intramural sports for students who didn’t make competitive teams.

During United with Youth’s Teen Symposium 2005 — a day-long event Wednesday for 150 ninth-graders from at least a dozen schools at the Radisson Paper Valley Hotel in downtown Appleton — the young volunteers identified ways they could improve their schools or communities, then put plans into motion.

"It’s important to actually set a date and follow through," said Roger Jazdzewski, 15, "and not just say you’re going to do it and then not do it."

Jazdzewski and other Appleton East High School students proposed arranging a Battle of the Bands: Music for a Cause to benefit local families in need, including those with children in the hospital or loved ones serving in Iraq.

Forums like Wednesday’s symposium are vital because young people need to know Fox Valley adults care about them, want them to thrive and value their input and energies, said Kali Kilishek, 16, a member of the symposium’s planning committee. The group included a handful of teen volunteers and leaders of nonprofits that support youth.

"If we start (the teens) out when they’re starting high school," Kilishek said, "we felt they’d still have the time to get involved and enrich their high school years. Then they could see they could get involved and be important parts of organizations."

Other upperclassmen held workshops to share the progress their schools are making in designing, completing and continuing community service projects, many of which were inspired by past symposiums.

Xavier High School seniors Kalyn Gigot, 17, and Rachel Polzin, 18, spoke to younger students about founding Hawks with Hammers, a teen chapter of Habitat for Humanity.

"We fund raise for Habitat, and also build picnic tables and sheds that go to Habitat families," said Gigot, explaining the students have found ways to give even though many are too young to participate in an on-site build.

"We all sign the picnic tables," she said.

The students have constructed 10 tables since the chapter’s inception and hope to build sheds this spring.

Added Polzin: "The rewards of the club are so obvious. We have a day where we build, and we see the product right away."

As a peer helper, Appleton West High School freshman Athena Lo, 15, signed up for the symposium so she could better assist her community.

"I don’t want anyone to be left out and live on the street," Lo said, enthused that her school soon may form a Habitat chapter called Terrors Help.

What most impressed volunteer facilitator Kathy Franklin of Appleton was a comment she overheard from one young participant. It became the rallying cry of the event, aptly themed "Future So Bright."

"She said what she realized was, ninth-graders can make a difference," Franklin said. "The future is in their hands, and it gives you a lot of confidence in the future."