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“How can we increase food security for youth in Denver Public Schools?”
That was the challenge focal question for the 2nd Think Like a Genius Foundation Challenge. YouthBiz created a team of four high school students: Greta, Brian, Isaac, and Abdul, and asked them to come up with a solution. After working together all summer, they presented to a panel of judges in the food and agriculture industry on August 6, 2016.
With the help of two adult team leaders and one corporate leader, the YouthBiz group, known as FARE Youth Discovery, came up with a plan to provide cooking and gardening classes to students within DPS. The group discovered that access to nutritious foods and food use was lacking within their neighborhoods. So they journeyed on to empower the students with knowledge about nutritious foods, how to plant them and how to cook them. By empowering them with that knowledge, in turn, they can take that home and show their parents and guardians.
The team went on to contact multiple organizations and restaurants to recruit donations for seeds and also manpower to teach any of the gardening classes as well as chefs for cooking. With the help of two adult team leaders, they created a guideline and a few lesson plans to put into effect this fall. The first school they decided to have this trial in was DSST Cole.
The day came to present what they had done so far. Multiple groups went ahead of them, presenting amazing ideas: school clubs that promote not wasting food by giving away the extra to different organizations, providing coupons, and a bag of food to families in need, and plenty more. Even though FARE Discovery Youth did not win, they are still working on their project, determined to alleviate food insecurity!
