Summit Recap: Thank you for building, rising, and soaring with us!

Thank you to the 1,000+ Best Starts Champions, partners, staff, and community members who joined us for the second annual Best Starts for Kids Virtual Summit: We build. We rise. We soar! As we look to the future of Best Starts for Kids, we’re thankful for the opportunity to reflect alongside all of you on the community we’ve built around our shared vision for babies, children, youth, and families and the challenges we’ve risen to and overcome this year.

*228 attendees responded to our poll letting us know where they were joining from*.

With more than 20 events over the course of four days, the Summit was action-packed with 18 partner-led breakout sessions — including 6 breakout sessions by and for youth and young adults, and countless other events.

Watch the keynote speeches and all our partner breakout sessions here

If you do not see a session you’re hoping to watch, check back later! We are still collecting a couple of videos from our partners and will upload them on the Best Starts for Kids YouTube channel.

*Olu Dixon, our youth keynote speaker, spoke to Hikma Sherka, another youth leader, about his journey as a Black artist and business owner, hopes for the future, and community support system.*

Each morning started off bright and early with Rainier Avenue Radio’s host, Tony B, who interviewed community partners on the incredible work happening across King County. Afterwards, Summit MC’s, Jessica Cafferty and Jennifer Tanaka, joined us with an overview of the previous day and what we could anticipate for the day ahead.

For the rest of the day, participants attended sessions to learn and build skills within our Best Starts community, listened to inspirational speakers, connected through virtual networking events, and competed in fun challenges to win prizes.

Announcing our Competition Winners!

Throughout the week, we hosted friendly competitions on Whova.com, our virtual summit platform, and summit participation earned points to win prizes. Congratulations to all our winners!

Build Rise Soar Challenge Winners
Winners earned points by engaging and attending the greatest number of Summit activities and events.

1st place: Stacey Silver from Open Arms Perinatal Services (735 points)
2nd place: Damica Shelton from Atlantic Street Center (620 points)

Leaderboard Winners
Winners were the most engaged participants on Whova.com, our virtual summit platform.

DeAunte Damper from ANEW – 1^st place with 181,400 points
Linsay Hill from MultiService Center – 2^nd place with 116,400 points
Hiio Delaronde from United Indians of All Tribes Foundation – 3^rd place with 115,400 points

Photo Challenge Winner

Damica Shelton from Atlantic Street Center with 13 votes

Thank You!

We are appreciative of everyone who partnered with us to make this year’s summit a success and to all the Best Starts for Kids Champions who attended. We are already looking forward to when we are all in community with you again – virtually and in-person!