Breaking Bread and Celebrating Youth Power

For the first time in 7 years, Make Food Make Fam returned!

On September 19th, more than 80 community members packed Youngstown Cultural Arts Center for an evening of food, celebration, learning, and youth leadership. People across generations and communities gathered to break bread, hear directly from FEEST Student Organizers, learn how they can support youth-led campaigns, and celebrate the work young people are leading in their schools.

The room was full, the energy was high, and our community showed up ready to eat, listen, cheer, and support our young people.

Food has always been at the heart of Make Food Make Fam, and this year’s dinner gave us plenty to celebrate.

Led by Chef Jonnah Ayala, our students and community volunteers prepared a meal from scratch and shared it together around the table. Chef Jonnah brought incredible care, creativity, and leadership into the kitchen, helping make dinner one of the highlights of the night.

Sharing a meal gave us space to connect before turning our attention to our youth-led campaigns for mental health support and food justice. Students led us through that by showcasing one of the projects they were working toward during the previous school year: their research.

Swipe through some memories from the day!

Dinner was only one part of the night! Guests also enjoyed our games table, contributed to a community mural, and participated in our Community Carrot activity, where people documented what they notice in their neighborhoods and reflected on the people, places, resources, and experiences that shape their own communities.

Our friends at 123 Foto helped us capture the celebration with a photo booth and printed photo strips for guests to take home.

These activities gave people different ways to participate throughout the evening. Folks could play, create together, reflect on their neighborhoods, meet someone new, and leave their own mark on the night.

This image is of FEEST’s Research Report on the tables at Make Food Make Fam! It is sitting on a deep red tablecloth, next to a silver platter centerpiece with seasonal fruit. 

In Spring 2026, FEEST Student Organizers developed research questions and gathered feedback from 153 students across five high schools. Through surveys, interviews, tabling, and conversations, students explored what helps young people feel supported, healthy, safe, connected, and ready to learn.

At Make Food Make Fam, students shared the completed Students Shaping Better Schools research report with our community.

Across schools, students talked about the pressure of schoolwork, the need for quiet spaces to rest and reset, trusted relationships with adults, access to healthy and filling food, and the ways responsibilities and stress outside of school affect what happens inside the classroom.

One student put the connection between food and learning simply:

The research also points toward what comes next. Student Organizers are already using these findings to shape campaign priorities, build strategies with their peers, share what they learned with decision-makers, and organize for changes in school policies, practices, and resources.

Our Student Organizers carried the night from beginning to end, including our incredible Co-Emcees, Kewther and Bitania, who guided us through dinner, research, celebration, and calls to action. We were also joined by FEEST Student Organizers, Harun, Sabrina, Nuura, and Ahmed, who introduced FEEST to the room with a video compilation they created about FEEST.  You can watch that video here! They used this video introduction as the framing to present our research to the room! We are so proud of the way they presented the information to our community. 

Graduating Student Organizer Liz reflected on three years of organizing with FEEST and what that experience taught her about collective action.

Throughout the speeches, the room responded with applause and cheers. It was a reminder of what becomes possible when young people are given the space to speak for themselves and a community is prepared to truly listen.

Liz also reminded us that supporting youth organizing can take many forms. At FEEST, we talk about giving our Time, Talent, and Treasure: making a gift, volunteering, showing up when students call our community to action, connecting FEEST with resources, and helping young people reach people with the power to make change are all ways to support this work.

Bringing Make Food Make Fam back for the first time since 2019 took a whole community.

A huge thank you to Chef Jonnah for leading our students and community through an incredible dinner service and bringing so much care, creativity, and storytelling into the kitchen.

Thank you to our friends at 123 Foto for capturing the joy of the evening with our photo booth and giving guests photo strips to take home.

We are also deeply grateful to the sponsors, donors, farms, and community partners who helped make Make Food Make Fam possible:

Mechanics Bank, Inatai Foundation, PCC Community Markets, Magic Cabinet, Arcora Foundation, 21 Acres, ACHD, Delridge Farmers Market, Viva Farms, Umoja N’Nguvu, Macrina Bakery, and Bahati Farm. We also had so many amazing communities support us by volunteering their time to make this event happen! Thank you to everyone who volunteered their time, from helping prep food for dinner, doing dishes, taking out the trash, and so much more!

Your support brought people together around the table and created a night filled with food, youth leadership, learning, and connection.

Thank you to Kae-lin for volunteering her time to take some amazing photos 

And a big thank you to our Student Organizers. Thank you for asking the questions, gathering the research, cooking, creating, emceeing, speaking honestly, and sharing your vision for what our schools and communities can become.

Make Food Make Fam gave us a chance to break bread, build relationships, reflect, learn from our youth, and take action together while celebrating everything our students have accomplished. From a shared meal and community mural to student research and a room erupting in applause, the night showed what can happen when we make space to gather across generations and communities. These are the spaces that can transform our organizing communities to be stronger together. 

We left Youngstown with full bellies, stronger relationships, new reflections about our schools and communities, clear calls to action from our youth, and plenty to celebrate.

We are grateful to everyone who helped welcome Make Food Make Fam back!