I had such an incredible week at the FUTP60 National Student Ambassador Summit! I’ve been working with this incredible organization on and off since I was in elementary school, so it was a huge honor to be able to attend the summit.
I was teamed up with 9 of funniest, kindest, and most genuine teens from across the nation! Team 1 truly made my experience the best. We even became like a little family and called ourselves Ohana (like in Lilo and Stitch!)
Cole from Arizona, Rachel from New York, me, Chris from Texas, Frank from Minnesota, Eliza from Utah, Emma from Virginia, Evonna from Connecticut, Nicole from Florida, and Rylie from Indiana!
We had an extremely busy schedule while in Dallas! We had dozens of seminars with several leaders from organizations like FUTP60, the National Dairy Council, the NFL, GenYouth, Adventure Capital, and SAP. I learned more on how to implement healthy meal programs and physical activity programs in schools, why it is so crucial to be healthy, and how to effectively lead your peers! I have LOTS of great info for health tips in the future so stay tuned!
One of the coolest parts about the summit was that four NFL players came to talk to us about leadership and healthy lifestyles as well as playing some flag football with us! It was an amazing opportunity to talk with these celebrities!
Jason McCourty from the Tennessee Titans and Devin McCourty from the New England Patriots! (and yes, they are twins!)
David Bruton from the Denver Broncos! He told us all about his Super Bowl experience and how cool it is playing with Peyton Manning.
We spent one of our days at the summit at AT&T stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys! We had the entire stadium to ourselves and at the end of the day we attended an expo ON THE FIELD! Words cannot even describe how magnificent that stadium is, and the big screen on the field was probably the coolest thing ever. I met another football player, some of the cheerleaders, and former player Troy Aikmon!
Didn’t get a picture with the incredible Troy Aikmon, but it was a pleasure speaking with him!
The summit had a special contest called YouthTalks where students could choose between 3 categories to present a 3-5 minute speech to over 400 leaders with the GenYouth foundation and to all of the students at the summit. In my category, I finished in 3rd place! I prepared the speech less than 24 hours before I had to present it, and over 10o students entered the contest, so I was very pleased with myself! It was great practice and I look forward to public speaking opportunities in the future.
Jake won the contest and Alyssa was first runner up! I had some crazy good competition in my category!
Quaker Oats sponsored a cook-off for each team. We were generously donated all of the cooking equipment we needed as well as $350 gift cards to shop for ingredients to feed at least 50 people. The only requirements were to use Quaker oats, one dairy product, and a fruit or vegetable. My team came up with the Parfait Party Cone! Stay tuned for the recipe. We think it was DELICIOUS!
Parfait Party Cones!
I met students from 43 different states while at the summit. I made friendships that will last a lifetime, and we have also created a network. We plan to use this connection to not only implement our great ideas and plans into our own school/community/state, but also spread our programs NATIONWIDE. I know this network will come in handy as I grow my program of Be Proactive, Get Active! Regardless of whether I win Miss Teen International, I absolutely plan to promote my platform nationally and internationally.
Thank you FUTP60 for one of the best weeks I’ve ever had! The tools and knowledge I gained this week will make a tremendous difference as I continue to educate and promote awareness of the childhood obesity epidemic!