ANC 2013: Breakfast-in-the-Classroom, Five Tenets of Leadership, and Al Roker!

Our first full day of sessions at ANC started off with a bang, and it was busy at the SNF booth! Thanks to everyone who stopped by to introduce themselves, talk about breakfast-in-the-classroom, and to mark your location on our “Where in the world are you serving breakfast?” map. We love to find out where everyone is from, and we collected a lot of pins today—come add your town or city to our map this week!

School Nutrition Foundation held a well-attended education session this afternoon, entitled “Expanding Breakfast: Bringing Everyone to the Table.” SNF Director Julie Abrera moderated the discussion, and the panel featured three of our favorite school breakfast rock stars: Jon Dickl (Knox County Schools, TN), Karla Robinson (Kansas City Public Schools, KS), and Sandy Huisman (Des Moines Public Schools, IA; read our interview with Sandy from earlier this year here). It was a productive session that included a Q-and-A at the end, and we discussed topics such as:

• Obstacles to implementation, and strategies for stakeholder engagement
• Financial assessment, program costs, and budgets
• Menuing
• Accountability

You can find many of the resources recommended by Partners for Breakfast in the Classroom/SNF in our online Breakfast Resource Center.

We were also on hand for a wonderful session featuring motivational speaker and trainer Jeff Joiner. From the program: The Richard B. Russell Leadership Series was established in 2010 by the Georgia SNA in memory of Senator Richard B Russell, a passionate leader in school nutrition programs from the very beginning when Congress authorized the school lunch program, now known as the Richard B. Russell School Lunch act of 1946. The Leadership Series honors three SNA past-presidents from the state of Georgia—Josephine Martin, Mary Nix, and Nancy Rice.

Mr. Joiner gave a rousing, inspiring speech on leadership, giving attendees actionable techniques to take back to their districts. A few of our favorite nuggets from his presentation:

• “If you work in school nutrition you have the most important job in the school district, and maybe the community. You’re the only ones who see every single kid, every single day. You’re the only ones that serve them and don’t want anything in return.”
• “Change is an inside job. You know that saying, ‘You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink?’ Well it’s not your job to make the horse drink—it’s your job to make him thirsty.”
• The Five Leadership Skills: Talent Acquisition, Driving Change, Fostering Growth Mindset, Flexibility, and Fairness

Finally we headed off to the first general session, where we were reacquainted with SNA leadership—including a fabulous group of past presidents!—and heard from the funny, charming, insightful Al Roker. What a terrific first day at ANC 2013!