Kearns aims to reverse troubling trends affecting its teens

Civic leaders in the U.S. struggle to effectively help their distressed neighborhoods. East Lake, Atlanta, created a replicable model that mixes residents of differing socio-economic status, and focuses on education and health in the area.

In Memphis, a creative blight-reduction initiative called 25 Square Blocks broke down the city into blocks. Inspectors were able to quickly identify all the violations and fix them, using the same amount of funding, but less time, as the old call-and-respond model.

Native American student graduation rates are much lower than that of any other demographic. The Red Cloud school teaches students on a reservation in South Dakota about the Lakota history to empower the kids and encourage resilience.

Citizens in Cairo have been working to make the streets cleaner in an effort to create more pride for the country and get the government's attention. From picking up trash and painting lampposts to collecting donations from passersby, the community is working together to make a new Egypt.

Through creative financing and new technology, a non-profit in San Francisco is making farmers markets more accessible to residents who rely on federal nutrition benefits.

Government benefits to aid the poor are frequently left unclaimed, leaving children hungry, young people unable to finish school, and opportunities for stable housing and preventative health care unused. New York City-based program Single Stop connects people to benefits for which they may be eligible. Importantly, Single Stop has served community colleges where disadvantaged students can use the assistance to help get through school.

New Orleans implemented an extraordinary 10-year plan that engaged unprecedented cross-sector collaboration between government, non-profit, and private entities to provide housing and housing services to the city's homeless veterans. The city's success in providing homes for every single veteran formerly on their streets motivated cities across the nation to tackle the crises using similar means, leading to a 1/3 decline veteran homelessness since 2010.

The San Francisco Unified School District is piloting a collaboration with the design firm IDEO to re-imagine the school food system and help combat childhood obesity by better designing the space and the experience of how children eat, as much as the type of food they consume.

After a rampant problem of violence among youths, Minneapolis enacted a violence-prevention plan which focused on collective action and stemming the causes at their source, resulting in nonfatal shootings involving youths drop by 72%. Now, other cities with similar problems are trying to follow suit.

Global social and economic problems are difficult to change. However, fan-activism fuels the interests of fans of popular young adult fiction. Books such as Harry Potter and the Hunger Games have inspired activist groups that raise awareness of global hunger, reading, and relief supplies to impoverished nations, among others. Being a fan has served as a bridge to become politically active and solve the world’s problems.