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May 23, 2013

St. Francis Eighth Graders Win Lead2Feed World Hunger Challenge

lead2feed
 The St. Francis team accepts the national Lead2Feed World Hunger Leadership Challenge award.
L-R: Ashley Butler, Dev & Jasdeep Lamba; Jeremy Mitschke, Anthony Nguyen, Charles Moreton,
Taylor Bowers, Miranda Slaton, McKenna Dishongh, Ian Southwell, Ruth Burrell, and Debbie Harris.

 

Friday, May 16, seven St. Francis Episcopal Day School eighth-grade students were recognized as the national winners of the Lead2Feed World Hunger Leadership Challenge. The group, known as Wolves Against Hunger, was presented with a check for $25,000 to benefit Kids’ Meals, their charity of choice and the state’s only meals-on-wheels service for children who live in poverty.

The contest was initiated by the USA TODAY Charitable Foundation and the Lift a Life Foundation, with assistance from the Yum! Brands Foundation, to encourage middle and high school students to hone leadership skills by completing a service-learning project that solves hunger issues. The St. Francis Wolves Against Hunger team partnered with K.L. International School in Meerut, India, to identify creative solutions to fight hunger in their local communities, with the students sharing best practices regularly via Skype. St. Francis students packed 5,100 sack lunches, collected more than 6,500 cans of food, packed boxes at a local food bank and created a world hunger awareness video. Their partner school in India volunteered time at a local orphanage, and students at both schools planted gardens to deliver fresh produce monthly to local charities.

The award was presented to the Wolves Against Hunger team during the annual St. Francis Middle School Recognition and Awards Assembly. Comprising the group were eighth graders Taylor Bowers, McKenna Dishongh, Jeremy Mitschke, Charles Moreton, Anthony Nguyen, Miranda Slaton and Ian Southwell, who were led by faculty sponsor Debbie Harris. David Novak, chairman and CEO of Yum! Brands, Inc., made the presentation via Skype. Joining the students in person were Ashley Butler, Lift a Life Foundation director; Debby Dodge, senior education director for USA TODAY; Angela Osting, public affairs manager for Yum! Brands, Inc.; Ruth Burrell, executive director of Kids’ Meals; and Jasdeep and Dev Lamba, representing K.L. International School in India.

More than 1,500 schools and 300,000 students from across the nation participated in the Lead2Feed World Hunger Leadership Challenge. The teacher-led educational program combines a standards-based curriculum on the topic of leadership along with the challenge of solving world hunger through service-learning projects conducted by student teams. Yum! Brands Foundation will provide nearly $250,000 in prize money grants to 140 schools for U.S. public charities engaged in hunger relief programs.

“I am inspired by the leadership and creativity that students from around the country used in their projects to fight hunger,” said David Novak. “Lead2Feed challenges students to think and act like leaders, work with others and set big goals to solve a real problem in our community and world. It is exciting to watch the program develop the next generation of leaders who are passionate about solving hunger.”