EF Summits!
On Friday evening, we made it to the Summits at the MiCo conference center with a huge warm welcome from the staff. As more and more groups arrived from all around the country and world, the anticipation grew, and finally we rushed into the auditorium where we were seated by the color on our name tags. Hundreds of teens, adults, teachers, and staff streamed in as the energy of the room grew and grew.
One of the students, Francesca, introduced Stephen Ritz, a teacher from the Bronx who began cultivating urban farms and opportunity for the kids there.
Stephen Ritz, filled with high energy and a distinct character, talked about his accomplishments, including creating his own business for kids in the Bronx to make money off of maintaining and cultivating his gardens. Ritz motivated others by sharing how he got elementary, middle, and high schools excited about being connected to food, and he showed the impact food had on his community with graduation rates going up as well as more people having access to healthy and nutritious foods!
Afterwards, the students split into 3 different stations: group bonding and an exploration of the Summit theme, team challenges, and dinner. The dinner consisted of local food trucks with both dinner and dessert with options such as sandwiches, pizza, Asian cuisine, ice cream, and cannolis. During group bonding, everyone introduced themselves and made connections amongst one another and the different roles food play in our lives.
With our small groups estabilished, the same ones within which we would be working to address the summit's challenge, we headed outside to face our team challenges. We bonded through activities such as the human knot, sponge races, and sing-offs, all of which helped us grow closer to one another and establish a groundwork of communication and cooperation.
To end the night, we had a surprise concert from a professional beat boxing group which was awesome! The energy of almost 2,000 people was tremendous and left us overwhelmed yet excited for the weekend to come!
Saturday, the first official day of the Summit, brought a few challenges. Ranging from group dynamics in our Summit teams to Global Citizen separation withdrawal, it was an adventure. But, once the Summit started off after an amazing introduction by two of our own group members, Rachel and Francesca, we learned from Raj Patel, a pivotal food activist, that food is not the solution to world hunger, but, a reform in the political, social, and economical aspects of the food industry are what will ultimately lead to change. Then we moved into our Summit teams for our first innovation session and began the creation of our projects. Here we developed as a team and overall grew closer through the process of design thinking. First, we started with interviewing each other to find a common problem and identify an issue that we wished to solve. For many, this process served as a way for team building and learning more about each other while working towards a common goal.
Then, we indulged in an amazing and refreshing lunch where the Global Citizens were reunited and had an early reflection on the day and our experiences. We even got to here some of our very own perform in the Live Music station!
From there, each one of us chose our own thematic workshop with the goal of learning more about professionals in the field of food reform and their point of views as well as their strategies towards solving problems for the future of food. Here we found inspiration for not only our summit projects, but also for how we can carry on these ideas back home and implement them into our future projects as Global Citizens.
After that, we moved back into our team were we dived into the Ideate and Prototype steps in the process to build our final project proposal. Here we not only continued to build ourselves as a team, but we also worked together in a professional and innovative environment. Now we look forward to finishing our projects tomorrow and presenting to numerous judges.
After being in our Summit teams, we all united as Global Citizens in a time of reflection where we discussed the inspirational, perspective changing, and funny moments with each other. This time served as a way for all of us to reflect not only on our projects, but also on the interactions between our teams and the individuals within them.
Finally, we headed off to dinner were we ate amazing Italian cuisine accompanied by entertaining and lively musical performers. There was dancing and laughing that brought us all even closer as a group than before as the day came to a close.
By the end of the day, we realized that today was just the beginning of the excitement and innovation that is to come tomorrow as we continue to build our team projects and compete for the top prize, as well as hear from many other inspirational and empowering speakers.
One of the students, Francesca, introduced Stephen Ritz, a teacher from the Bronx who began cultivating urban farms and opportunity for the kids there.
Stephen Ritz, filled with high energy and a distinct character, talked about his accomplishments, including creating his own business for kids in the Bronx to make money off of maintaining and cultivating his gardens. Ritz motivated others by sharing how he got elementary, middle, and high schools excited about being connected to food, and he showed the impact food had on his community with graduation rates going up as well as more people having access to healthy and nutritious foods!
Afterwards, the students split into 3 different stations: group bonding and an exploration of the Summit theme, team challenges, and dinner. The dinner consisted of local food trucks with both dinner and dessert with options such as sandwiches, pizza, Asian cuisine, ice cream, and cannolis. During group bonding, everyone introduced themselves and made connections amongst one another and the different roles food play in our lives.
With our small groups estabilished, the same ones within which we would be working to address the summit's challenge, we headed outside to face our team challenges. We bonded through activities such as the human knot, sponge races, and sing-offs, all of which helped us grow closer to one another and establish a groundwork of communication and cooperation.
To end the night, we had a surprise concert from a professional beat boxing group which was awesome! The energy of almost 2,000 people was tremendous and left us overwhelmed yet excited for the weekend to come!
Saturday, the first official day of the Summit, brought a few challenges. Ranging from group dynamics in our Summit teams to Global Citizen separation withdrawal, it was an adventure. But, once the Summit started off after an amazing introduction by two of our own group members, Rachel and Francesca, we learned from Raj Patel, a pivotal food activist, that food is not the solution to world hunger, but, a reform in the political, social, and economical aspects of the food industry are what will ultimately lead to change. Then we moved into our Summit teams for our first innovation session and began the creation of our projects. Here we developed as a team and overall grew closer through the process of design thinking. First, we started with interviewing each other to find a common problem and identify an issue that we wished to solve. For many, this process served as a way for team building and learning more about each other while working towards a common goal.
Then, we indulged in an amazing and refreshing lunch where the Global Citizens were reunited and had an early reflection on the day and our experiences. We even got to here some of our very own perform in the Live Music station!
From there, each one of us chose our own thematic workshop with the goal of learning more about professionals in the field of food reform and their point of views as well as their strategies towards solving problems for the future of food. Here we found inspiration for not only our summit projects, but also for how we can carry on these ideas back home and implement them into our future projects as Global Citizens.
After that, we moved back into our team were we dived into the Ideate and Prototype steps in the process to build our final project proposal. Here we not only continued to build ourselves as a team, but we also worked together in a professional and innovative environment. Now we look forward to finishing our projects tomorrow and presenting to numerous judges.
After being in our Summit teams, we all united as Global Citizens in a time of reflection where we discussed the inspirational, perspective changing, and funny moments with each other. This time served as a way for all of us to reflect not only on our projects, but also on the interactions between our teams and the individuals within them.
Finally, we headed off to dinner were we ate amazing Italian cuisine accompanied by entertaining and lively musical performers. There was dancing and laughing that brought us all even closer as a group than before as the day came to a close.
By the end of the day, we realized that today was just the beginning of the excitement and innovation that is to come tomorrow as we continue to build our team projects and compete for the top prize, as well as hear from many other inspirational and empowering speakers.
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