The shooting of early August left Ferguson reeling due to the effects of looting and protesting in the community. As a result of the damages, Volunteen Nation decided to gather its force of teen volunteers and work to promote peace in the Ferguson area through volunteer-submitted peace initiatives.

With the support of Brentwood Whole Foods Market’s St. Louis Peace Grant, Volunteen Nation will implement up to 20 peace projects in Ferguson.

“So far, we’ve had over 300 topic applications and that’s been amazing for us to see,” Co-founder and Vice President of Volunteen Nation Simone Bernstein said. “The projects really vary in scope, and in size and idea.”

Volunteen Nation is a national youth-led, not for profit volunteer organization that provides grants and resources for youth to get involved in their communities. In order to provide aid to the Ferguson community, the organization currently allows students to submit their ideas for peaceful initiatives to implement in the community. Volunteen Nation ambassador and FHC senior Joey Silver recently submitted an initiative for a meet-a-cop event at area preschools in order to teach young children the importance of police officers in a community.

“Well, I’d like to do a little DNA thing with their fingerprints,” Silver said. “That would be fun and it would show them how it’s important for cops to do their job. When the little kids see their older brothers or their parents going out rioting for something that they don’t quite understand, they already have in the back of their head like, ‘Oh, cops are bad.’ Cops are here to protect us. It’s their job to make sure that everyone is safe and when there’s a bad person or someone they think could be bad, then they need to do what theycan to protect  everyone else.”

According to Marketing and Community Relations Specialist for the Brentwood Whole Foods Jessica Seratti, the partnership with Volunteen nation formed as a result of some

tweets from their account calling for volunteers and promoting grants for peace in the St. Louis area. Wanting to help out, Seratti reached out to Volunteen Nation and as a

result, the Whole a Foods Market St. Louis Peace Grant was created. In order to raise money for these grants, the Brentwood Whole Foods will use their One Dime at a Time program. Through this program, the goal is to eliminate single-use plastic bags. Any customer who brings their own bags or purchases a reusable bag and uses it to bag their groceries has the option to take 10 cents off of their purchase or donate the money to Volunteen Nation.

“First, I think one of the main goals of One Dime at a Time, aside from trying to give back to the community, is to really help a not for profit organization shine,” Seratti said. “We really wanted to use that platform to promote the organization and get as many people that come thorough our doors to know what Volunteen Nation does, who they are, who they serve and their mission and so that’s kind if the ultimate goal of the program. With the peace grants, I think there’s a lot of goals, but we definitely want to inspire people to kind of take care of their communites, to focus on their communities, focus what they can do to give back, what they can do to kind of promote positivity and peace in their community.”

With these initiatives for peace, teen volunteers in the area have many opportunities to aid in the healing of the Ferguson community. Along with the peace grants, Volunteen Nation has cleaned up trash, planted peace gardens and set up workshops for peaceful conflict resolution around the Ferguson area. Efforts to restore Ferguson are scheduled to occur throughout the year.

“The most rewarding part is seeing them [the volunteers] so excited about giving back because so many volunteers say how much the hate giving back to the community because they never found the right opportunity,” Bernstein said. “When you find the right opportunity that fits your skill set and interest, you are so excited and passionate about what you do, and that’s what’s so amazing for me to see.”