VOX ATL connected with a thoughtful team of high school students from Asheville, NC, who lead racial equity work in their district through the REAP program. Co-created in 2020, in collaboration with Asheville City Schools and The Equity Collaborative, REAP students expressed interest in VOX ATL’s mission and sought an opportunity to connect with Atlanta teens doing their own meaningful work as part of their Spring 2026 Freedom Ride Experience. As part of that experience, VOX ATL and REAP produced this podcast.
REAP Producers & Guests:
Ashni Rhodes
August Boachie
Augustus Wilkinson
Ava Zlatkin-McMorris
Elizabeth Muir
Fiona Ruch
Jason Sobremento
Kyel Gist
Magdalie Agan-Bedard
Malyla Vazquez
Max von Mitschke-Collande
Maya Pattanayak
Sebla Miracle
Selah Simpson
Tess Bartholic
Tristan O’Donnell
VOX ATL Host:
Siddarth Suresh
Music Credit:
Twilight Beats by PremiumBeat via Envato
TRANSCRIPT: (Edited for clarity)
Siddarth: I’m Siddarth and I’m 18. And the question for today is: How do you engage in your community to impact education?
Selah: Hi, I am Selah. I’m a senior at Asheville High. I am 18 years old. I’d say one of the biggest ways I’ve engaged in my community is through REAP, the Racial Equity Ambassador Program, where my team focuses on peer education. That basically means youth facilitation. We wanted to make sure students in REAP and students in our community had better skills in facilitating certain events, just to help with overall engagement in the community and fixing the problems that we see, such as the achievement gap, racism, and general issues like that.
August: Hey, I’m August. I’m 16, and I’m a junior at Asheville High. One way I’ve impacted my community in Asheville City Schools is the DREAM program. For those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s an afterschool mentorship program that supports high schoolers mentoring middle schoolers in sixth through eighth grade.
Studies show that the most vital thing for a middle schooler is not to go home and sit on a screen from 3 to 6 in an empty house, but to be in a place where they’re supported, challenged, and growing through team building, collaboration, problem-solving, and critical thinking. The outcomes we see from kids in after-school programs are miles ahead of those who aren’t given that opportunity.
I found a statistic when I was looking for data to bring to D.C. to lobby: One in five kids in North Carolina is looking for a spot in afterschool and can’t get one. In Asheville, we’re so privileged that we have the DREAM program, and that is one way I can help impact my community by being a near-peer mentor to middle schoolers every Monday and Wednesday.
Ashni: Hi, I am Ashni. I’m 18, and I’m a senior at Asheville High. I would say the biggest way I’ve engaged in my community this year to impact education has been through the JEDI — the Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee — in my student government at the high school.
This year, we focused mainly on getting more diversity in AP and honors classes, because that is a huge issue at our high school and across the state and across the country. Specifically, Asheville City Schools has one of the worst achievement gaps in the entire state, which is a striking statistic, and we’re working to change that. One way is to get more people of color into these higher-level classes.
Gus: I am Gus, and I’m 16. I divide it into two things: the how and the why. The why, in my personal experience, is being there for each other and talking to people — talking to people outside of your groups, outside of your comfort zones and cultures and backgrounds, learning about other people and being open-minded, and putting that into classrooms with students and learning how to integrate that into education.
It all starts with talking to people in our community, not just in our school. That means just people on the streets — you can walk up to somebody, talk to them, ask them how they’re doing, ask them their name, learn about other people, learn from other people, and gain connections. If everybody did that, there’d be so much more understanding. I think that’s the most impactful thing we can do: integrate connection and communication into education and classrooms.
Magdalene: I’m Magdalene Bedard, and I am 17 years old. I engage in my community to impact education through the DREAM program. It’s a near-peer mentorship program at our city’s middle school, and I run an art and activism club through it. I come up with all the lesson plans, and I facilitate the club. My middle schoolers participate in art projects tied to social movements and learn about how important art is in those movements.
For me, mentoring is one of the biggest parts of how I engage in my community — providing a space for kids who have a difficult time in the traditional education system, a space where they can be creative thinkers and talk about hard topics, what’s going on in the world. Not pushing those topics aside, but helping them feel involved and feel like they have a voice.
Kyel: My name is Kyel. I’m 16 years of age. How I engage in my community to impact education involves planning major events for Asheville High School — like bringing in Ross Gay, Mike Wiley, and even just coming here to do this podcast — to spread the word of the REAP program and explain what we’ve been doing in our communities.
Recently, we’ve done something called Ed Talks — Education Talks — where we brought in perspectives from several different teachers and members of the Asheville City Schools Foundation. They talked about their personal experiences with students, their experience working in education and how it has changed them and their ways of teaching.
Fiona: Hi, my name is Fiona. I’m 16, and through REAP, we engage in our community. I think what we do is so important within our school and community, and in the future, I would love to see the things we do in our club expand to the whole school and become the norm in our whole community.
Sebela: My name is Sebela, and I’m 18 years old. I think one of the biggest ways that I engage in my community to create equitable spaces for students is getting really involved in networking events and any opportunity I have to meet people older than me or people who have already been through the education system and seen the same things I’ve seen.
By putting myself in situations where I can talk to people, I’ve built strong connections with those who can give me the tools to help others who might not have the same resources. Especially through REAP, talking about racial equity is just normal for me on a day-to-day basis.
Tristan: My name’s Tristan. I’m 16 years old. I think networking events are very impactful. We recently hosted the Ed Talks at Asheville High, where teachers went on stage to talk about the strategies they use to include everyone and make everyone feel heard. Opening myself up to that was really impactful and allowed everyone to learn something.
I was also part of a civic engagement group called Everybody Huddle Up, where we spoke to large groups about how to make reparations for Hurricane Helene more equitable. I just think community events, getting in touch with the community, talking to people, and learning things yourself can really change a community.
Elizabeth: I’m Elizabeth, and I’m 14. The way I work with my community is through my church — I help feed people experiencing homelessness, talk with them, and help them get the help they need, and that’s how I impact the community.
Tess: My name is Tess, and I’m 15. I’ve worked with a student government program as a freshman representative. We’ve done work with justice, education, diversity, and inclusion — that’s a subgroup we have — and we’ve worked on spreading more information about AP classes, especially to underclassmen who don’t know a lot about them. I think that’s helped spread education in our community and get more knowledge about AP classes out there.
Jason: My name is Jason, and I’m 18. I participate in my National Honor Society and go to help younger kids with after-school activities, like playing outside or doing art projects. I feel like that’s really important to the community.
