What exactly is CMYC?

CMYC stands for Carmel Mayor’s Youth Council. Basically, we are a club/organization that is not associated with any school. We’re actually associated with the mayor’s office, and we do events and community outreach and things like that. It’s been a great experience thus far!

What’s the mission of the club (raising money, promoting a certain cause, just organizing fun events, or something else)?

I would say it’s all three of those. I think that our main goal is just community outreach and informing the community, “this is what’s going on.” A lot of the money we raise does goes to charity, (but) I wouldn’t say it’s so much that part, although that is very rewarding and a good part of it. I think it’s more so just telling the community what’s going on, what events they can go to and support.

What kind of events does CMYC normally run?

We have a few throughout the year. Some of the big ones that we do are the Ultimate Frisbee tournament, a gift wrap/toy drive for middle schoolers, and the 3v3 (basketball tournament). We have a lot of people that go to that. And then a few of the other ones that we do are not so necessarily oriented with people in our grade, but it’s more a general, overall community outreach. For example, we did bike parking (at the Carmel Farmer’s Market) over the summer and things like that.

How were CMYC’s plans affected by COVID-19? Which events were cancelled?

Our 3v3 (basketball) events, middle school and high school, were cancelled. Additionally, all our meetings and the remainder of events we had for the 2019-2020 term have all been cancelled. Basically, the next we meet, it will be an all new council.

Is CMYC planning on doing any of these events virtually? Is that possible?

That’s not really something we talked about, just because I think that a lot of the things that we try to do wouldn’t really be the same (online). Like with a 3v3 event, I don’t know how we could shapeshift that to a virtual frame. A lot of our events could not be done virtually, so we didn’t really even talk about that. 

Is CMYC planning or adapting any new events or initiatives in response to the coronavirus and the stay at home orders?

Thus far, I haven’t really heard anything. I know that we’re supposed to be having interviews and the application process for next year going on right now, but obviously because of everything that’s going on we can’t have that so we’re shifting that a little bit. Other than that, as far as events or community outreach, we’re just going off what the mayor says so we don’t have any of our events or anything else that we’re looking to do virtually or planning or anything like that.

How are applications/officer selections being affected?

You need a recommendation letter, and now we’re having it to where you can have those emailed instead of (mailed) in. You have to mail everything to the mayor’s office, and it needs to be postmarked by a (April 13). It was a little slow getting (it) out, especially with COVID-19 and everything, to be like “let’s post this on social media and stuff,” because we thought we’d have time at school to promote CMYC, but that didn’t happen.

What’s the overall mood? How does the club feel?

I would say we’re rolling with it. It’s been very low stress, and just kind of “you know what, it is what it is, and we’re going to work from here.”