Students Join Student Nutrition Services for Summer Internship

by Simone Saldanha, Student Engagement Coordinator, Student Nutrition Services

This summer Kenny Mei (Junior, Marshall High School) and Tianlang Ouyang (Senior, Wallenberg High School) interned with Student Nutrition Services as part of SFUSD’s College and Career Pathways Summer Fellowship Program. They collaborated with SNS staff on a variety of projects and practiced a range of skills including public speaking, time management, data analysis, and human-centered design.

Project Spotlight
Together, they  created an online guide to support parents in filling out the Multi-Purpose Family Income Form. This form is essential for making sure students have access to school meals. 

Internship Experience
For Tian, a highlight was “being part of the team of SNS and actually accomplish[ing] something that is going to be seen by thousands of families.” After the six-week long internship, he observed “SNS is actually a big family composed of many important people who are in charge of different sectors of the process. It is really more complex than you think!” Kenny remarked that a highlight for him was, “the friendly, casual, and welcoming environment at SNS and the friendly, creative, and outright amazing people that work everyday with passion and determination.” 

Aw shucks, Kenny and Tian, we think you’re great too! As Kenny wisely said, having students “feel included and have a voice in decisions of gravitas” is something that we strive for in our work to improve school food. We’re grateful for their time and commitment this summer!

In addition to hosting summer interns, we engage students during the school year through the School Food Advisory program, a youth-led group of high school students who participate in a human-centered design process, developing solutions to school food challenges and integrating their voices into decision making around school food. Stay tuned for more information on how students can apply to join the School Food Advisory in the 2019-2020 school year!

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