When I first found out that I was going to the Nourish to Flourish Summit, I was ecstatic. I’ve heard of the plans that the Urban School Food Alliance and the National Dairy Council had for making a summit for school meals, but I never thought of being actively a part of it, let alone being one of the speakers at it! It was an absolute amazing experience, and I can’t wait to see the results from it.
Day 1:
The first day of the Nourish to Flourish Summit was exciting and packed fill of speeches and stories. The first speech given was from the Chairman of the Urban School Food Alliance, Eric Goldstein, and the President of the National Dairy Council, Jean Ragalie-Carr, both of them inspiring and laying out their vision for what they want to see at the Summit, as well as showing the current state of school meals and the history of them. Then, Dr. David Cooperrider spoke up stage on the Appreciative Inquiry (AI), and how we would use it throughout the Summit, when moving from dreaming to designing and so on. Afterwards, Ani from New Jersey, Abby from Indiana, and myself went up on stage and spoke about school meals and what all of us have done with FUTP 60. I focused on the Leadership aspect of FUTP 60, Abby focused on how her school’s school meals program has changed with FUTP 60, and Ani focused on what he’s been able to do with AdCap, another program which is all about student entrepreneurship. It was amazing to go up there and talk about why I think school meals matter and the experiences that I’ve had with eating school meals all over the country. Afterwards, we were onto the first of the 4Ds of the AI, which was Discovery, where we found with the people at our tables all of the strengths we have when talking about school meals, and what we want our result to be, while also having students. Then, we moved to the Dreaming phase, where we showed what we wanted to see in the school meals program, but in some sort of a silly skit or play or song. After all of that, the day was done, and all that was left to do on that Tuesday for myself was to catch up on school work.
Day 2:
As soon as the second day of the Summit started, all the attendees went right to work. The entire day was focused on finding our groups and action items that we wanted to happen in the school meals system. From political action to enhancing the experience of milk, there was a multitude of options to work on and use your skills with. The one that I went to was “How can we change the National Narrative on School Meals?” We went to work on how we would go through with idea, which we later ended up on having a media and speaking campaign. We had 4 hours to develop our prototype for the media campaign, and at the end of the day, we got to pitch our idea and hear our positive, as well as the negative parts of our project. After that, all that was left was the amazing Banquet held by the Urban School Food Alliance, and a good night’s sleep.
Day 3:
Although the last day was a bit sad, especially with leaving with your new partners in work, and meeting the other students from around the nation, we still got to work. The last day was full to the brink in turning our drafts of our projects into reality, and the 30, 50, and 100 day plans that we have for our project. Then, one last time, we presented to the audience, this time on what our Action plan, and our main mission goals for the projects that we were working on. After that, it was time to leave, and after a farewell speech and a reminder of what we’ve accomplished from Dr. Cooperrider, we left the Summit, heading our separate ways to wherever we are going. And although the Summit is over, it’s created bonds with people over our passion for school meals, and we will see long due progress that is needed in our school meals program.
Prescott
State Ambassador
New Hampshire
8th Grade
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