On Friday September 27, twelve Mount Vernon Students went on a trip to Georgia Tech where they would attend the Chick-fil-a Leader Academy kick-off. Chick-fil-a Leader Academy’s mission is to inspire students, transform schools, and impact communities.
The event’s host, Billy, began the day by getting us excited and our blood pumping. He did this by creating a 741 person dance party in the auditorium. Hannah Onley exclaimed, “The day started off pretty amazing.” Once we had had a little fun we took our seats and David Salyers took the stage. David was a very inspirational speaker and he spoke about what it means to be remarkable. “Nothing is as common as the wish to be remarkable, yet so few people are,” David started out. He also challenged the student-filled auditorium to choose to not be normal. David, then, showed us a video of what being normal means, because in order to choose to not be normal people have to know what normal is.
“Normal is boring, common, known.” After he spoke about what being normal is he began speaking about what being remarkable is. ReMARKable is MARKing the lives of the people you serve. He ended with the differences between what a normal business is thinking and what a remarkable business is thinking. Normal businesses think about money and how much of it they can make while a remarkable business thinks about how they can make a difference.
Once David Salyers was finished with his presentation we went outside and rotated through the EAT. PLAY. SERVE. tents. Mount Vernon, among other schools, began in the EAT tent where we got to enjoy Chick-fil-a chicken sandwiches while meeting students from other schools. Once we were done eating we moved onto the PLAY tent where we had the chance to write letters to troops, play corn hole, and hang out. Our last station was SERVE where we packaged food for Kids Against Hunger.
“Overall they day was absolutely amazing. We can’t wait to become even better leaders and make a difference at Mount Vernon and in the world,” said Anjana Anandkumar. Being a part of the Chick-fil-a Leader Academy is an amazing opportunity not only for these twelve students but also Mount Vernon.
Congratulations to our leaders:
Bob Luo
Alex Alba
Anjana Anandkumar
Caroline Corley
Maomao Guo
Emilyann Kellogg
Bob Luo
Bliss Mallory
Sierra Middleton
Hannah Onley
Hunter Whitney
Jack Xiao
Hannah Zenas
