Thank You, Teachers!

My reason for writing this blog is to say THANK YOU to four special teachers in my School District. I’d never be as active in Fuel Up to Play 60 without their encouragement, support and coaching. My Program Advisors are truly MVP’s and have definitely challenged me to do the best I can for this program. So thank you to Mrs. Greene, Mrs. DeMenter, Mr. Leopold and Mr. Eastman.

My most recent challenge that the Program Advisors encouraged me to do was to be the first student from our district to attend the national Student Ambassador Summit. I am so glad I tried, was named State Ambassador and got to attend the Summit! It was one of the best leadership experiences I’ve had; the enthusiasm that my Advisors have provided me has really been inspiring. My goal is to also go next year.

The biggest challenge so far in my journey was last summer when Mrs. Greene, Mrs. DeMenter and Mr. Leopold encouraged me to try to start the Fuel Up to Play 60 program at my new Middle School. Mrs. DeMenter and I attended the Wisconsin MVP leadership session last summer and built a game plan to get it started. One of the first tasks was to create a list of teachers that I could approach to be Program Advisors. That’s when Mrs. DeMenter helped me meet Mr. Eastman, a new teacher coming into my new school, and he agreed to be a Program Advisor. I was so nervous going and asking, but super happy I did!

Mr. Eastman has been my main support to the program start-up at my school and we’ve learned a lot along the way. Our Dairy Council has also been a huge support, so thank you to Karen Doster and Laura Wilford. Their support assisted in the planning for last school year’s kick-off event, which was a smoothie contest. The student team that helped make and serve the smoothies also was a huge help! It all was a team effort, which is key to the Fuel Up to Play 60 program. We also ended up receiving a small grant from Wisconsin Dairy Council to help pay for the smoothie event.

Mr. Eastman and I both attended the Student Ambassador Summit in Chicago and have talked through our plans for this school year’s events. They’ll be bigger and better than last year! With the support, enthusiasm and encouragement Mr. Eastman has been providing, I’m confident we will make the 2nd year of Fuel Up to Play 60 in our school an even bigger hit.

So to anyone out there, nervous to ask for teacher’s support, don’t be! Make sure you know why you want their help and ask. I did and I hope that you get as strong as a team that I have. I’m lucky I have the best team and they are my MVP’s!

Steve
Summit Ambassador
Wisconsin
8th Grade