Experience of Lifetime

My experience in ACT has been rewarding. It has given me the opportunity to make an impact in my community before I leave for college. I have also learned a lot throughout the program about leadership skills and topics such as body image, nutrition, and physical activity. These trainings have made a big impact on me as a person. I use to be very shy to speak in front of a group of people but that has changed now. ACT helped me become more confident in myself and I have no problem with speaking to a group of people anymore.

To begin working on our topic, we went through trainings as I’ve mentioned before and then we did a community assessment to see what kind of food options are available outside of school. We found that it is very hard to find healthy food options such as fruit or vegetables in stores like 7-Eleven, Pop Eyes, and Starbucks. Recently, we created and distributed more than 600 surveys to the students at San Leandro High School. The surveys asked the students what they think about the school food and how healthy it is. We are still in the process of analyzing the surveys. We have also created our own theory of change which is our roadmap to our goal of educating people about healthy body image and nutrition. The theory of change lays out our assumptions, strategies, outcomes, and goals. One of our strategies is a possible buddy system between San Leandro high school and McKinley elementary school to educate elementary students about nutrition and healthy body image. 

That is what we have done so far and I hope the project will continue. I don’t want the advocacy project to end once this year ends and that’s why I want to thank State Farm for giving us this grant. Thanks to State Farm, our advocacy project will continue!