Encore Designation - 100 Best Communities for Young People

Marquette, Alger Counties Named One of the Nation’s 100 Best Communities for Young People for Third Time

January 24, 2008
Marquette/Alger Counties, MI— America’s Promise Alliance , the nation’s largest alliance dedicated to children and youth, in partnership with Capital One, today announced that Marquette and Alger counties have been named a winner of its 2008 100 Best Communities for Young People competition.
This is the third time in a row the two-county region has been awarded the designation.
read the entire news release...

Pryce Hadley of Marquette addressed the Marquette County Board of Commissioners on February 6, regarding the encore designation of Marquette and Alger counties as one of the 100 Best Communities for Young People by America’s Promise. Hadley is a youth board member of the Great Lakes Center for Youth Development. He shared with the commissioners what some local teens have to say about why the region is a great place for young people to live and grow into caring and competent adults. (GLCYD photo)

Marquette and Alger Counties Named One of 100 Best Communities for Young People for 2007

January 23, 2007
MARQUETTE - America's Promise - The Alliance for Youth is pleased to announce that Marquette and Alger counties has retained its designation in a national competition to identify the 100 Best Communities for Young People for 2007.
The region was first recognized as an exceptional area for young people in 2005.
read the entire news release...

Don't Miss The Celebration In your Community!

For a complete list of the selected communities, visit www.americaspromise.org.

Selection Criteria

The criteria for selection of the 2007 100 Best Communities for Young People are based upon research conducted by National Academies of Science, Search Institute, Academy for Educational Development and Child Trends.

The criteria are divided into three sections:

Community support of children and youth¹

• Providing awareness of the needs of children and youth and solution in a holistic resource approach
• Providing public and private resources for children and youth in a coordinated way
• Providing opportunities for youth leadership and voice in the community decision-making process
• Providing quality, outcome-based programming for children and youth
• Gathering and using data to make decisions around policy, resource provision and programming for children and youth
• Providing a wide range of programs for children and youth for each of the resources children and youth need to thrive

Resources Children and youth receive/the Five Promises ²

• Caring Adults
• Safe Places
• Healthy Start
• Effective Education
• Opportunities to Help Others

Children and youth outcomes

• High school completion rate
• Educational attainment/achievement
• Psychological health
• Physical health
• Healthy behaviors
• Self-sufficiency
• Civic engagement

Other important factors in determining the 100 Best include:

• Engaging committed partners and individuals from all sectors, and enabling them to collaborate more effectively toward shared goals and plans
• Raising awareness of kids' needs, using relevant data, and driving people to act and advocate to make kids a top priority

To ensure that the 100 Best Communities for Young People reflect the broad diversity of America life, communities will be segmented according to:

• Population size (measured in ranges)
• Poverty rate (as measured by census)

We have also ensured that the 100 Best list includes adequate representation of communities based on:

• Region of the country
• Population density (as measured by "urbancity" indicators of the Census)
• Ethnicity rates (as measured by census)

2005 Information is still available.