What is a GripTape Champion?
Your peers — other teenagers — designed the Champion role. They told us that, in addition to money, they needed a person outside of their family and network who:
- believes in them no matter what
- is genuinely curious about them and their interests
- will ask good questions and help them think
- won't tell them what to do
Champions support 10–15 youth individually for 10 weeks while you each design and execute your Learning Challenge. They serve as a thought partner and a listener, empathizing, being curious, and asking the right questions at the right time. Champions do NOT set direction or evaluate you. They are simply there to support you while you chart your own course.
Anyone who loves working with young people can be a Champion. Anyone.
Champion applications are accepted on a rolling basis at the beginning of April, August, and December to align with the start of new Learning Challenges.
Being a Champion
“I am a GripTape Champion because I strongly believe in youth-led learning. The young people who I have been entrusted with over the years are some of the kindest, brightest, most innovative youth that I have ever met! I keep coming back to GripTape because this program is not like anything else out there; I will do everything I can to continue to support them!”
