As promised please find part 2 of the speech below. My favorite speech of the conference.
After their amazing vision for the organic patch, getting it approved and raising $30,000 Sam and his team reached another goal by serving some of their vegetables as part of school meals. What was amazing was that they were able to increase the sales of salads from a measly four to seven to around seventy. This shows what can be done with education and empowerment of the youth. Sam said it himself when he explained that they proved something to themselves, that youth can make a difference.
The project has also donated over five hundred kilograms of food to low income families and incredible feat and one they hope to repeat. On a more light hearted note they also gave a tomato to each staff member at their school a fine gesture. Word of this project has spread both locally and nationally and a number of students are in contact with Sam hoping to emulate his success thus far. You can see how proud Sam is of his teams achievements, small things like small children enjoying weeding and expanding the food tastes of these children. Or moments like when of the tough kids at the school told him the project kicked ass! But the project was not all plane sailing they have had many set backs including being turned down for grants despite weeks of working on the proposal and almost having their fundraiser cancelled on them. Their were also personal sacrifices for Sam and his team as he missed a science project meeting because of project sprout and the science group then not speaking to him for months.
Sam is inspirational in his vision as he looks forward to what will happen in the future. With more children like Sam amazing things can happen. As he says all that is needed is youth and motivation. Although we don’t agree that Sam is not special we do believe there are special children in every school and lots of them. Sam details the many schools that have been inspired to follow them some schools are thousands of miles away but have still been touched by the program. Perhaps most amazingly is that a school in Senegal is also to follow and start their own program. Sam states how Terra Madre is the beginning of a revolution and one that his generation understand – they get it – they will embrace it. He wanted to let everyone at the conference that the youth do care and that they promise to continue our project to reunite mankind with the earth.
An amazing project and one that we should all be proud of.