On Saturday, May 3, my Mom and I went to the Leadership Summit in Newark, DE to meet other people who submitted projects to the 360 Leadership Challenge. Normally I have flag football on Saturday mornings but instead I got dressed up and went out to something called a “summit.” So I’m sure you know this wasn’t my first pick. But it ended up being fun.

There were a lot of college students there from a LEAD class at UD and they planned activities for us. I was part of Group 1 which ended up being because I’m in elementary school. Group 2 was middle schoolers and they joined our room, too. We did an activity where you are given dried spaghetti, I think maybe 20 pieces, and three strips of masking tape, some rope and a jumbo marshmallow. We were asked to build something that could hold the marshmallow on top. The grown ups were on one side of the room and the kids were on the other side. We were competing against each other, it was a timed activity.

So I’m sad to admit the kids lost. The grown ups built a tower taller than ours (which fell over) and it held the marshmallow. It wasn’t straight, it definitely leaned, but it didn’t fall.

We also did a magic carpet activity where we split into groups of three and we had to flip the carpet over without stepping off of it. This was tricky, but my group did a good job.

We made posters, too. I couldn’t think of anything to draw for my poster. I was tired.

There was an award ceremony. The Mayor of Newark, Polly Sierer, was there and so was Dr. Williams the superintendent of my school district. They handed out certificates to everyone who submitted a project. That was really nice. I thought maybe I wouldn’t get one because they didn’t call my name, but it ended up that I was in 1st place. When they called my named and started talking about Brae’s Brown Bags I was so surprised. My Mom looked at me and I looked at her and then she told me I should probably get up and go to the front of the room. We had no idea that I was winning anything. Really!

So they gave me a certificate and a heavy medal award thing that looks like a giant coin. It’s actually pretty cool, I like it, it came in a case to keep it safe.

I’m really proud that my project is doing good and helping people, but I’m also really proud of everyone else who was there on Saturday. I met new friends and learned about other projects happening near by that are really cool. Like the Zero Waste Team Delaware. I met three of the kids working on that project and they were pretty cool.