By Jenna Hoover, ACE Field Correspondent and student at West High School, CA

To be honest, my school’s ACE Action Team has been lagging this fall. There is so much that we want to do, but we have not done anything. And I am just as guilty as the rest of my team.

So on November 10^th, I signed up for the November 13^th Los Angeles Student Leadership Training, hoping to re-kindle my passion for environmental action.

ACE did not let me down. When I needed a push to return to my previous state of action and enthusiasm, ACE provided me with it. Well, in truth, they placed high school students around me whose passion and spirit about the environment restored my own.

From attending multiple ACE leadership trainings, I have realized that they are so invaluable not only because of the presentations and activities but also the people you are surrounded by for five hours.

It first starts with the educators. Ethan, Sophie, and Kristina always take advantage of the teaching method of “learning by example.” Through the duration of the training, the three were never without smiles, and their clear passion about climate change awareness provided me with role models to think of whenever I begin to lose momentum. However, I felt the most inspired by my fellow students.

We were from four different schools but we all had one thing in common: a willingness and drive to fight climate change. Students from one school had overcome much adversity in order to host a lunchtime climate change awareness campaign.

Another school had struggled with implementing a sustainable recycling program on its campus. But despite all of the hardships that they faced, they all persevered in the end.

One of my favorite parts about the trainings is that what we learn is completely tangible. Often, I leave a leadership workshop extremely excited about becoming a better leader, but I have no idea about how to implement that in my life.

One of the major focuses of my ACE training was “Building a Successful Project – The 7 Step Guide to Turning Ideas into Realities.” Through this presentation, I was able to see why my ACE Action Team was struggling with our projects; we were not planning effectively.

After the training, I returned to my ACE Action Team and shared the insights I gained from it. And now, we are starting over, completely prepared to implement some great projects.

The training reinvigorated me. It provided me with the knowledge, inspiration and push I needed. Even though it was my third training, I left it just as impacted as I was by the first two ones.

No matter how many trainings I will go to, I am absolutely sure that I will leave each and every one of them changed for the better.