Let your passion help you make a difference

August 07, 2026

High school seniors at Amy Biehl Charter High School in Albuquerque are tasked with serving any organization of our choice and completing 100 hours of community service. I chose to work with an organization called Kids Cook! whose mission is to teach kids nutrition, cooking skills and instilling a balance in life.

Through my service project, I learned the importance of early childhood education especially in Title I elementary schools. I would go to two elementary schools within Bernalillo County, where I would serve as a teacher aide in the classroom. I would help prepare the food, teach an activity, keep elementary school kids engaged and have my own table during cooking time.

We would get to cook cuisines from around the world, giving kids not only the experience of new cultures but also enhancing cooking skills while enriching education on general nutrition. In 2025, President Donald Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill cut back on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program funding, which includes the SNAP education program from which Kids Cook! received the majority of its funding.

This budgetary cut was detrimental to Kids Cook!’s longevity. When I found out that Kids Cook! was in jeopardy, I was in shock. I honestly had no idea that SNAP was critical to funding food education programs. I knew that Kids Cook! was too important to give up that easily.

I have been a part of Girl Scouts for over 12 years now, and if I have learned one thing from my time as a scout, it is advocacy. Your voice matters and it is essential that if you believe deeply in something that you should set out to make change. The highest award that you can earn in Girl Scouts is called the Gold Award.

Originally, I had planned on creating a cookbook that could be sent to food banks using Kids Cook! recipes, but once I had heard the organization’s funding was in trouble, I knew that I needed to shift paths for my award.

One thing I had struggled with the most during my Gold Award was trying to achieve something sustainable in an unsustainable environment. What was the point of me doing a cookbook if nobody was going to be able to produce them in the next year or two. Then the idea came to me to do research on grants. Using corporate grants as a way to secure money so that Kids Cook! would be able to afford employee salaries and resources for the upcoming years.

Honestly, I thought that this would have been a lot easier than it was. Finding grants that were applicable was like finding a needle in a haystack. Going through dozens of websites and navigating how rolling grant cycles was a completely new experience for me. When it came to writing my first grant, it took multiple drafts and corrections.

At moments I struggled with finding the reason to continue on with my Gold Award, but realizing the change in kids’ moods and them actually learning made it all worth it. You have to work hard for something you believe in. In the end, all the effort was worth it. I truly believe that if you are passionate enough about an issue then it is your duty to do something about it.

This is even more important for the people in my generation, because we can make a difference and our voices deserve to be heard. I urge everyone to find something that inspires you and to make a change for the better of your communities. You will never know the impact you can have until you make the effort.

Kaleigh Campbell is an 18-year-old volunteer for Kids Cook!