By Danielle Smith
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While some students spent their summers either at school or at home, Future Farmers of America (FFA) President Senior Zoe Tengan and Sophomore Brianna Hull, as well as several advisers attended the annual Washington Leadership Conference (WLC) in Washington, D.C. from July 21 to 26. While there, students were taught leadership qualities, created strong partnerships with other students from across the nation and were given a glimpse into the issue of world hunger.
“It really opened my eyes to the world and to see all the different struggles that everyone goes through. I never fully understood how kids suffer from hunger and I’m just sitting at the table and I’m not even thinking about it. So that really affected me as well as everyone else, because it was heartbreaking to hear their stories,” Hull said.
During the five day event, students from all states worked towards obtaining leadership qualities and many other skills through an array of activities. “We did leadership programs where we learned about struggles around the world and that world hunger was one of the biggest issues. Then we made an effort to solve that by packaging food and we also got to do touristy things, like seeing the Capitol and the White House and the Smithsonian, which was really cool,” Hull said.
Although the leadership program happens annually and spans the entire summer, this is the first time MHS students have attended something like this before. “The opportunity was amazing. And we only got to go because we were sponsored by the Department of Labor and the City Council of Honolulu so the trip was all expenses paid,” adviser Jeffrey Yamaguchi said.
Students were tasked with putting the skills they learned into a hands-on service project, where they packaged and distributed thousands of meals to the homeless. Adviser Monica Yamaguchi stated, “On the last day they made 55,000 meals for the homeless. Less than 200 kids, in two hours, worked out 55,000 meals.” Hull added, “It made me really want to try to help the homeless, because that’s a big issue here.”
The program not only enlightened students, but the advisers who attended as well. “We got to meet other advisers and talk story with them. And we found out that the main issues that are found in Hawaii are all over the nation in terms of things like funding and just getting qualified teachers just to teach the program. We thought only we had these problems but we found out that it’s like that all across the nation,” FFA adviser Jeffrey Yamaguchi said.
Tengan and Hull were accompanied by other students across the nation, and were all able to create and share a strong bond in the short time spent together. “You know what’s amazing is that the event planner made sure that in each room, no two people knew each other. So the students didn’t know anybody, but as the week went by, they became closer and energized each other. It was to the point when we had to leave for our flight at 3:30 in the morning, one of our girls’ roomates stayed up with her to hug her goodbye. So were lifetime friendships born? Yes, I think so.” Monica Yamaguchi said.
Many hope that the trip will spark interest in other students and convince them to partake in the FFA club in the future. “FFA locally, in the state of Hawaii, has kind of been going down in terms of membership and so we’re trying to build our membership up again. This was one way. Hopefully these guys from this year will come back and inspire the rest that didn’t get to go and we can slowly build our FFA again,” Jeffrey Yamaguchi said.
Both the students and advisers alike learned many things during the WLC program and hope to use the experiences gained in many different aspects of their lives. While Jeffrey Yamaguchi doesn’t suspect the trip to become a recurring event, members wish to return in the near future to represent Hawaii once again.
