How You Can Take Action
Apply to be a FEEST youth leader
Do you care about social justice and student health? Want to make real change in the school food system? Join our team as a youth leader! This is a paid internship for students at Chief Sealth, Evergreen, Franklin, Rainier Beach, and Tyee High Schools. Apply today!
Take our school issues survey
If you could change anything about your school, what would it be? Together we can make it happen! We believe young people have the power to win real changes at school. Take 3 minutes to take our survey and let us know the changes you want to see next year!
Attend an event
As part of the FEEST Food is Power Summer Series, we’ll have three sessions:
- Part 1, July 15 2-4pm; Traditional Foods with Rhonda from Canoe Journey Herbalists
- Part 2, July 22 2-4pm; Food Sovereignty and Growing our own Foods with Hannah from Black Farmers Collective
- Part 3, July 29 2-4pm; Food Systems Change Organizing movements with Estefania from Uprooted and Rising
Registration is open to anyone, but this is a youth and BIPOC led and centered space! We’ll also be posting in our newsletter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Our Campiagn Goals (What We Want)
We want
FRESH
food
We want all meals to be cooked from scratch, on campus, and made from fresh (never frozen or canned), locally sourced ingredients
- Scratch cooking equipment for all schools
- Training for all kitchen staff
- Good working conditions for kitchen staff (including overtime for training, benefits)
- Partnerships with local food businesses and suppliers for fresh fruits and veggies
We want
CULTURALLY RELEVANT
food
We want a variety of menu items that reflect the diverse background of students
- Hire qualified chefs of color to make authentic meals
- Train kitchen staff to prepare diverse, culturally relevant meals
- Partnerships with local food businesses and suppliers for cultural foods
We want
FREE
food
We want breakfast and lunch to be free for all students
- Clear all lunch debt from student accounts so meals are accessible to all students regardless of income
- School districts should enroll in the Community Eligibility Provision to give everyone free meals
Past Wins
Police Removed from Seattle Public Schools
FEEST partnered with Black Minds Matter and WA-BLOC in a campaign to have police officers removed from Seattle Public Schools. We created a petition that gathered about 20,000 signatures signed by parents, students, and community members. We presented the petition to the Seattle School Board and worked with School Board Member Brandon Hersey to write a referendum that the board could vote on. The school board voted unanimously to end their partnership with the Seattle Police Department.
New Water Bottle Filling Stations
FEEST partnered with the Office of Sustainability and Environment to bring new water bottle filling stations to Rainier Beach High School and Chief Sealth High School, at youth-chosen locations. This was especially significant at Rainier Beach, where there was only 1 clean water station for all students.
Youth-designed Snack Program at School
FEEST Youth Leaders in Seattle designed a snack program that gave free fruits and protein snacks to students during the school day. This program was made in partnership with the Seattle Office of Sustainability and Environment (OSE) and Seattle Public Schools (SPS) Nutrition Services. After a successful test run at Chief Sealth High School, SPS agreed before the pandemic to expand the program to Rainier Beach High School and eventually the rest of the Seattle Public Schools. The success of this program at Chief Sealth proved that youth can and should design effective solutions for the problems that directly affect them.
Culturally Relevant Foods on the Lunch Menu
FEEST students have partnered with Nutrition Services Directors in Seattle Public Schools and Highline Public Schools to get a variety of youth chosen, culturally relevant items on the menu. In Seattle Public Schools, Nutrition Services made a commitment before the pandemic to offer a wider variety of culturally relevant items, including an expansion of the salad bar. In Highline Public Schools, youth won Somali spaghetti, chicken tortilla soup, jerk chicken, pho, banh mi, pozole, and more on the menu.
Youth-Designed Items on the Menu
FEEST students in Highline Public Schools carefully crafted new recipes and taste-tested them with students in the cafeteria. After proving that students liked these new youth-designed items, the Nutrition Services Director agreed to add our butternut squash curry, lentil stew, apple bread, blueberry salad dressing, and pickled carrots to the district-wide menu.