Fuel up to play 60

Fuel Up to Play 60 is an in-school nutrition and physical activity program launched by National Dairy Council and NFL, in collaboration with the USDA, to help encourage today's youth to lead healthier lives.  Davenport School of the Arts have been participating in this program for about 6 years now, with full participation the last 4 years earning grant money to help our school improve our nutrition offerings and provide students with more physical activity opportunities here at school.  The program is designed to help give students a leadership role in making changes in their school and community to help make it a healthy choices and lead and active lifestyle.  The students at Davenport School of the Arts helped create programs on our campus such as the Remote Breakfast location for Middle School students.  Students also helped create a better system for our Walk for Life Program.  We purchased a Lap-tracking software program that uses bar code scanners to help track the laps the students run or walk each morning during the Walk for Life program.  Fuel up to Play 60 student volunteers help organize and coordinate the lap program each morning.  Students involved in the program can earn points by logging their activities on the Fuel up to Play 60 web site.  With the points students can become Ambassadors for not only our school, but can be selected to represent the stat of Florida, or even the national level.  A few years ago, one of our students, Amaris Robinson was selected to be the state of Florida Ambassador.  She attended the Nation Summit in Chicago, and was then asked to become part of the Youth Council, a National group of High School Students who actually plan, and run the National Summit each year.  Several of our current students have reached ambassador status already this school year, and we hope to have another student selected to represent Florida at the National summit next summer.  Over the years the program has grown.  A few years ago we only had about 10 members.  We were selected to participate in The Gridiron Cooking Challenge at the One Buc Place, the Buccaneers training facility.  We finished 2nd in the competition and got to spend the day at the facility with players and cheerleaders. Interest grew the next few years and now well over 50 students are actively involved in the program.  Interest from the students this year is at an all time high.  Because or our participation in events over the last few years, our school was asked by the Florida Dairy Council to participate in several exciting events.  On October 1st we were asked to select 18 students to attend the Buccaneers Game as guest of the Fuel up to Play 60 Program. We helped kick off the Buccaneers Day of Celebration of the 10th anniversary of the Play 60 program.  As part of this celebration they asked 4 of our students to lead the team out on to the filed to kick off the game!  This was such an honor, and something we will all remember for a long time.  We have also been asked to host a Mini Summit for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on December 2nd.  This summit is designed to help introduce the Fuel up to Play 60 program to other students and teacher from around the Tampa Bay Area.  This summit will be student lead with our students doing most of the planning and implementation of the days activities.  The most important benefit of the Fuel up to Play 60 program here at Davenport School of the Arts is, now our students have a voice and the ability to help make changes to our school and the programs we run.