First Leadership Meeting

On July 5th, the NiHao Youth Program Leadership Team held our first in person meeting, aiming at familiarizing ourselves with each other, discussing our overall plan of action for 2021, and more importantly, how to promote the Nihao Youth Program to get more students involved in fight against hunger. We started off with self-introductions to get to know more about our wonderful leadership team, talked about personal interests, shared stories, car preferences, taste in music, what instruments one plays etc. There are lot of common interest among us, especially we all have volunteered at Food Bank. After introductions, Ryan Xie encouraged us to pop ideas of what we should do this upcoming year.

The team formulated ideas regarding the spread of awareness of the youth program and advertising. Methods discussed included going door-to-door, as brought up by Vivian, or the usage of social media accounts to expand our influence and reach out to more people in the local community.

Next up was fundraising. Any organization needs money to operate, and the NiHao Youth Program is no different. With money, the NiHao Youth Program can execute events designed to promote community engagements and better help the North Texas Food Bank. The task of fundraising proved to be a little more demanding and interesting. After discussions, we ended with creative ideas such as food drives, biking or running miles around a lake when weather permits, and going door-to-door, once every three months. It will be very exciting to see how much fund we could raise through these activities.

Then, we took a small snack break, delighting in Sun Chips and Ice brought by Harry. We plan on volunteering at least once a month, implementing an attendance system to ensure members are regularly giving back to the community. They are required to attend a volunteering opportunity once every two-to-three months, creating a general consistency. 

Finishing up, we discussed how membership could expand. A direct method all officers agreed upon doing is calling 5 friends about the NiHao Food Bank this week to recruit them to be Ambassador. This way, not only will the North Texas Food Bank get more volunteers to help, but by having friends volunteer, the experience will be more fun and rewarding.
In conclusion, our first leadership meeting was both effective and fun. Not only did we go over our plans for the year, set up goals, and take action, but we also got to know each other. We are looking forward to achieving many great things for our community this upcoming year!