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Reaching Out to Families: 70 Hours In

I chose to work with K-State Southwest Area Research and Extension Office with a main leadership goal to improve the number of Summer Meals served for the month of July in my local town of Garden City. To begin, I observed at the various sites to see which, if any sites, improved or not. Some sites improved from 2 to 11 kids, while others declined from 300 to 60.

At the beginning, I was hoping to be able to design fun and interactive activities for the children to bring them back. However, I learned that this would be difficult, so I focused on outreach first. I was able to practice communicating to local communities in both English and Spanish, which was part of both my communication and networking goals this summer.

 This began with a set of posters across the neighborhoods. I was able to walk around to the neighborhoods near each site and placed many similar posters around the area.

On the most recent day, I helped a small church which was serving dinner and helped to serve many of the children. Some of the adults even mentioned finding out through my posters and FaceBook. Many of the individuals were very pleased with the food and the numbers had increased from last year. So far, it seems my job has started off well.