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'A better world is possible'

Each week, teens from Hillsborough and Pinellas join antiwar protesters at BayWalk. They tell why.

ST. PETERSBURG - Every Saturday night, Lana Parker sets out to change the world.

The 16-year-old St. Petersburg High School sophomore pulls on olive fatigues, laces up black combat boots and affixes a "Code Pink for Peace" button to her T-shirt. Then she heads over to BayWalk, the downtown dining, shopping and entertainment venue, to express her views on the war in Iraq and the Bush administration.

For two hours, she pumps her fist in the air and chants.

Not my president, not my war.

Ain't no power like the power of the people.

Bush, Bush, hey, hey, how many kids have you killed today?

Parker is among a small group of young Pinellas and Hillsborough people who have been protesting at BayWalk for more than two years. The teens consider themselves part of St. Pete for Peace, the group that organized the protests in 2003.

Brittany Foster, 15, is a relative newcomer. Foster, who attends Sickles High School in northwest Hillsborough, said she argues about politics in her American government class. She is frustrated because few of her classmates see a need to get involved in the protests.

"Sometimes I ask them to come," she said. "They just laugh."

Peter Likins, 16, joined the protests two months ago after the city erected metal barricades along the street at BayWalk's edge, saying the demonstrations were creating a safety hazard.

Likins had little interest in protesting the war because he didn't think it would do any good. But he felt an obligation to demonstrate for the right to protest.

On Aug. 6, he was one of six people arrested after a 13-year-old boy and a 33-year-old man were cited for blocking the sidewalk and put in a police van. Police said they tried to block the van from leaving.

Likins was back the next week, along with 200 other protesters. He has continued to come, even though the city has removed the barricades.

"It's probably my upbringing," said Likins, who is homeschooled. "My mom was a hippie and a peacenik, and my dad always wanted me to think for myself."

Mitch Flowers, a 14-year-old Gibbs High School student, began attending the protests at the beginning of the summer. Like Peter Likins, he doubts they will do much to stem the war.

"We're just raising awareness," he said. "We're getting people involved."

He said he has learned to ignore BayWalk patrons who yell obscenities, throw drinks on him and his friends and grab at their signs.

"People call us f------ idiots," Mitch said. "I just flash them a peace sign."

Being arrested last month has not kept Brendan Mannion, 16, from the protests, which he joined in 2003. He thinks it is important to draw attention to poverty, decadence and hatred.

"There is such a gap between rich and poor in this city," he said. "People can afford to spend $50 on a bar tab while there are people starving just down the street."

The Gulfport teen, who is being homeschooled while he works toward an associate's degree at St. Petersburg College, is thinking about becoming a lawyer or a Greenpeace activist. In the meantime, he hands out fliers about peace activities to his neighbors and distributes food to the homeless in Williams Park.

"I don't expect anything to change because of the protests," he said. "I just want to show people there are alternatives. Hopefully, we can get people to start thinking differently, to go out and vote and get active in the community."

The protests make some teens - and their parents - nervous. Michael Vanderheyden, a 14-year-old Riviera Middle School student, says he knows kids who would like to attend the protests, but their parents won't let them.

"My mom is for it," Vanderheyden said, "but she's afraid I might get hurt."

Lana Parker, the St. Petersburg High student, worries, too, but she has no plans to quit.

"I don't want to be shot with rubber bullets or anything," she said. "But I want to change the world before it changes me."