Why We Did It

We made a collective commitment to overhauling our organizing strategy because we don’t have time to waste. With the increase of climate catastrophes, political violence towards our communities, police murders of Black people, coronavirus and more, we understand that we are at a choice point. What we do in the next 5 years is going to be critical for the survival of our planet and the survival of our communities. We need powerful youth leading the way to more just futures, right now. 

Youth organizing is a viable and necessary strategy to win. To truly shift power in the United States, we must support young people in shaping decisions that will impact generations to come. FEEST sees itself as part of a larger ecosystem of youth organizers across the country who are building power, escalating pressure on decision makers, and changing systems to actually serve our people. At FEEST, we know it’s crucial for us to train young people in organizing skills and strategic analysis so they can keep our movements for justice alive and growing for decades to come.

We know that in order to do this, we have to make a concrete shift from advocacy to organizing. This began with taking a deeper dive into our strategy work in the summer of 2020. At that time, we had just won our first large scale campaign to remove police from Seattle Public Schools with our partners Black Minds Matter and WABLOC. It was our first time truly organizing and proved more strategic and powerful than our advocacy work. This time, we showed power to decision makers, and could increase pressure on them if they refused to meet our demands.

However, we didn’t know how to replicate that process. We didn’t have a strong base of supporters we could recruit and mobilize for actions. We didn’t know how to run our own campaigns authentically led by and for youth. So we reached out to Eric and James to see if they could help us sharpen our basebuilding and organizing strategy.

Image is of Methods of Addressing Social Problems Chart by the Midwest Academy in their Organizing for Justice Training

What We Want to Try

From this strategy process, we have created a collective path forward to win the futures that our communities deserve. To help guide us in our new direction, we drafted new vision statements, a mission statement, and an “about” section. We also identified Key Organizing Practices, a Youth Leadership Scale, and Youth Decision Making Structures that we want to experiment with as an organization along with action steps for each. We believe these are necessary to reach our vision for better schools and the society we want to live in.

Vision Statements

A strong vision statement is critical for us to win, because it illuminates the futures we’re fighting for and believe are possible. The statements below bring our visions for society and schools to life.

Vision Statement for the Schools we want:

We envision a today where youth of color and working-class youth exercise their power to change systems that serve them so that they can thrive physically, mentally, and emotionally. In our vision, schools are vibrant learning centers that reflect the students they serve and support the long-term growth and holistic wellness of students and our communities.

Image is of FEEST Youth Leaders, posing at the Fresh Flavor 2019 Photo Booth

Mission Statement

Our mission statement gives us a clear path to our vision and the futures we deserve.

FEEST’s Mission:

FEEST trains youth of color and working-class youth to build collective power and organize for transformative and systemic change in their schools.

About FEEST

Our About FEEST section grounds us in our organizing history and where we’re going.

FEEST trains youth of color and working class youth to build collective power and organize for transformative and systemic change in their schools. Our power comes from building a strong base, developing youth leaders, and running dynamic, radically joyful campaigns for systemic material change. Our work is both youth-led and multigenerational.

Our roots started in food justice and through that, we have won systemic improvements in school food in Highline and Seattle Public Schools. Since the 2020 campaign to remove police from Seattle Public Schools, we have expanded our campaign goals to include a wide range of systemic solutions that improve student wellness at school.

Why We Need Youth-Led Intergenerational Movements:

At FEEST, we know it’s crucial to train young people in organizing skills and strategic analysis so they can keep our movements for justice alive and growing for decades to come. By also working with adults and elders, we can harness the unique strengths and knowledge of different generations to expand our strategies for applying pressure to decision makers. Together, we are a more powerful and sustainable force for systemic change.

Key Practices

In order to fully shift from advocacy to organizing, we need to ground ourselves in Key Practices and Action Steps to help us embody this change.

Leadership Development

We need to develop youth to be powerful leaders and organizers so that we have a sustainable, long-term movement for justice! We identified Youth Training, Youth Action, and Staff Development as our key categories for leadership development.

Building The Movement

We can’t win alone. It’s critical that we build people power with other organizations that are by and for our communities so that we can win our campaigns.

Special Thanks To:

MSW Intern/Consultant & Data Wizard:

Sharif Krabti

FEEST Board Members:

Ashley Miller

Jo Day

Regina Dove

FEEST Strategy Team:

Arista Burwell-Chen

Cece Flanagan

Jaimée Marsh

FEEST Staff:

Arista Burwell-Chen

Belina Seare

Cece Flanagan

CiCi Schneider

Cilia Jurdy

Jaimée Marsh

Leigh Thomas

Mari Ramirez

Soy Dara