Sometimes, while putting the paper together, two seemingly unrelated stories suddenly fit together. That was true last week. At home, the Vashon Community Scholarship Foundation, which has provided money for students for more than 30 years, announced it is shortening its long award ceremony and is also reaching out to the community for financial support. At the same time, much attention nationally was focused on youth leading the nation to a reckoning with its lax gun laws.

In the newsroom, writing about both topics, their connection is clear.

The scholarship foundation may be one of its kind — providing at least one scholarship to all who apply, year after year after year. Foundation board members say the award ceremonies are only partly about money — but also provide an important recognition for all students. At each ceremony, when some of the students’ histories, hopes and dreams are shared, classmates and community members make discoveries about students they never would have imagined. From the arts to engineering and computer science to public service, Vashon students are clearly engaged in the world around them. These teens, many soon to move on from Vashon, will lead us into the future.

The theme of today’s youth leading us forward has been made clear repeatedly since the shooting in Parkland, Florida. This was evident last weekend when students took the stage from Washington, D.C. to Seattle and countless points in between. They spoke out forcefully, passionately — and in one notable instance — also commanded the crowd in silence.

Here on Vashon, Saturday’s march was short on youth, but we believe for many islanders who attended the march, island teen Iris Sackman’s moment in the metaphorical spotlight will remain a vivid memory. Standing on a table in the Village Green, the March for Our Lives banner behind her, she delivered her remarks — in teenage fashion — with a little help from notes she had in her phone. She promised that her generation will bring change. We have no doubt they will — to gun laws and to many important issues that they are passionate about.

We are looking forward to it.

As adults, it is our job to support the youth — through time and attention and sometimes with money. For those with the means to do so, supporting the Vashon Community Scholarship Foundation makes sense. Such a donation is timely, because of the foundation’s immediate needs, and because of the importance of youth leaders that we are watching on the national stage.

The foundation has an important mission in helping launch more than 100 students in two months’ time. There is much work in the world to do. Let’s help make it a little easier for our teens to do it — however they best see fit.