TAF@Saghalie becomes the first West Coast affiliate to place in National Urban League Case Competition

Five TAF@Saghalie student delegates traveled to the annual National Urban League (NUL) Youth Leadership Summit  in Columbus, OH where the team became the first West Coast Urban League affiliate to place in the Case Competition it its ten year history. Student presenters Camron, Sayra, and Jennifer shared their RideSafe app idea and earned third place overall – a huge achievement for them, TAF@Saghalie, and the Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle, who sponsored our students’ participation. In fact, Michelle Merriweather, CEO of the Urban League Metropolitan Seattle made it her duty to fly out just to see the students compete. She was able to join them and the other two TAF@Saghalie NUL student delegates Christopher and Morgan for a celebratory picture following their accomplishment.

The National Urban League youth conference is a TAF tradition. This year’s conference brought together almost 400 student delegates from different Urban League affiliates across the country, who participated in various events and workshops over the course of four days.

Sarah Wilkes, TAF’s College Readiness Program Manager, has taken a group of minority students from our school to the conference for the past few years. “They were so nervous before their Case Competition presentation,” Wilkes expressed. “At one point, I was kind of afraid one of the kids would get sick, but they ended up doing an amazing job as I knew they would!”

Aside from participating in the Case Competition, students got to experience real-life dorm life and explore the campus at Ohio State University (OSU), posing with the Brutus Buckeye mascot statue and and visiting their Orton Geological Museum. They also participated in a special STEM day field trip to Honda of America Manufacturing and the Transportation Research Center vehicle testing track in Marysville, OH.

We are extremely proud of our student delegates for representing STEMbyTAF in Columbus. Their RideShare app came together thanks to the students’ years of experience with STEM-centered project-based learning at TAF.