When we first began this project, we had no idea how many obstacles we would be presented with. We initially hoped to open an everyday cafe on campus, but soon realized it was much more difficult than expected. After several meetings, drafts, and conversations with our program coordinator, school principal and other staff, we narrowed the scope of our project down to 4 on campus events.
We were surprised by the overwhelming amount of support we received from our school. Watching students eagerly line up for one of our smoothies was deeply satisfying, but selling out was by far our proudest moment throughout this project. Looking back, if we could go back and plan this differently, we would have advertised around campus better to have a wider reach. While students and staff already knew who we were, however if we had started marketing in the fall, we would have had a bigger impact on campus, and would have reached more students. We also realized that presenting to a smaller group as we did through advisories allowed us to personalize the experience for the students.
Our end goal has transformed greatly. Our team leader, Jennifer, began this project in hopes of establishing an ongoing program. While that goal remains the same, how we plan to achieve it has changed. We now work with the hopes of inspiring a wellness movement across LAUSD. We hope future clubs create a network of health clubs across other LAUSD high school campuses, so that other schools can have the Chicas Verdes experience. We turned around attitudes and false speculations about healthy eating in our school and want to encourage other high schools to do the same.