OFL Summit in Omaha

As most of you know, Operation Frontline is a national program based in Washington, DC, with 20 program sites around the country. A couple weeks ago, the Operation Frontline Seattle staff traveled to Omaha for the annual Operation Frontline Summit with all other OFL staff from across the country.

In the past year, the ConAgra Foundation has generously sponsored Operation Frontline National. Because of this new relationship, they offered to host our Summit this year at their headquarters in Omaha. We were excited to go check it out and (some of us) were eager to get our fill of steak!

We stayed in the Old Market section of Omaha, in a hotel located directly next to ConAgra’s campus. In our rooms, gift bags full of Slim Jims, pudding cups, and Peter Pan peanut butter welcomed us.

Our conference sessions were held in the Learning Center on the ConAgra campus. We attended sessions on Organizing for Impact (about organizing space and information in the office), teaching food budgeting in our classes, how to support our (wonderful) volunteers, and a tutorial on how to use digital cameras to capture the best in-class photos possible. The sessions were informative, but perhaps the best part was getting to meet other OFL staff from different sites, and to hear how OFL is implemented differently at their sites. Some sites have just one staff person, who cannot attend all classes. Others utilize volunteer shoppers and must shop for each class separately due to a lack of storage space at their sites. It was fascinating to hear how each site implements OFL in their unique way.

The second night, we got a behind-the-scenes tour of the ConAgra Test Kitchen and were then invited to an Interactive Dinner there. Their team of chefs created a smorgasbord of different dishes for us to try using themes like “one-pot meals” and “healthy substitutions.” We tried biscuits made with 52% whole wheat flour (but still white in color!) in a Chicken and Dumplings dish, Broccoli Cheddar soup, and pulled pork sliders. I felt a little bit like a Top Chef judge as I roamed through the kitchen nibbling and chatting with others. For dessert, the staff made the Chocolate Cake and Carrot Cake from the Eating Right curriculum.

Our last surprise came at us Oprah-style the last day. After the digital photography workshop, ConAgra gifted each site a Flip video camera to capture classes in action!

On the last day we had an hour to kill before heading back to Seattle, so we decided to check out the famous Omaha zoo (where we got a chance to practice our new photography skills...)!

Thanks ConAgra for hosting and to the National office for putting together such a useful Summit.