A summit experience with RISE TOGETHER
Next stop: Superior ↗RISE & Thrive Youth Wellness Leadership Summits
Youth Wellness Leadership Summits
Your experiences matter. Your ideas belong here. Let’s put them into action.
What happens
when young
people lead?
RISE + Thrive brings youth and the adults beside them together for storytelling, creativity, and honest conversations about well-being and substance-use prevention.
It’s a place to explore what matters to you—and what you want to do about it.
Rooted in Northwest Wisconsin. Ready to connect more communities.
Bring who you are.
Explore your lived experience and share at your own comfort level.
Find connection.
Meet peers and adults ready to listen, learn, and support one another.
Make something happen.
Turn what matters to you into an idea for your school or community.
Next up / Northwest Wisconsin
We’re gathering
in Superior.
Yellowjacket Union
University of Wisconsin–Superior
The experience / Previous youth summits
This is where
connection begins.
Moments from previous youth summits where RISE TOGETHER participated.
Built together / Our roots and collaborators
2026 marks our first collaborative year as RISE + Thrive. Local partners planned the Northwest Wisconsin summit for two years before RISE TOGETHER was first invited to participate in 2025.
Partners and planning contributors across the years include:
- Charmaine Swan, Northwest Wisconsin Lung Health Alliance
- Pat McKone, American Lung Association
- Sara White, Kerri Green, and the Douglas County Drug Prevention Coalition
- Lisa Freier, Douglas County Department of Health and Human Services
- Rachel Coughtry, CheqPLAY Coalition
- Jane Larson, Phil Roe, and the Superior High School Pledgemakers
- Erika Kaufman and Northwestern Middle School FACT
- Northwestern High School Students Over Substance
- Ashland High School Sources of Strength
- UW–Extension, Douglas County
Past planning members: Russell Habermann of Essentia Health generously shared his time and expertise on the planning committee in 2023 and 2024. Tracy Heglund brought her energy and leadership to the committee from 2023 through 2025 during her time with UW–Extension.
School counselors Brittany Redden and Callie Sopiwnik donated their time for two years so that the event truly served the middle schoolers, teachers, and schools attending. Their insight helped make the summit more meaningful for every student in the room.
These contributions helped lay the foundation for the summit we have today, and we’re thankful for all they gave.
The original inspiration: Alysha Basel’s work with the South Central Alliance for Tobacco Prevention and its Youth in Action Summit inspired the original summit idea.
RISE TOGETHER also presented at Juneau County’s Youth in Action Summits in Wisconsin Dells for two consecutive years before our first Northwest Wisconsin invitation. We honor the local partners whose planning made these gatherings possible.
Your community
could be next.
Schools. Coalitions. Health departments. Youth organizations. Let’s build a summit around your young people and what matters to them.
risetogether@weallrisetogether.org