On March 20 during 6th hour Marketing teacher Erin Royalty brought in guest speaker Maria Rose Belding to expose her Advanced Business Students to a young entrepreneur, who is making a difference in the world. Belding is an individual who has been recognized by CNN, The Sodexo Foundation, and the international Clinton Hunger Leadership Prize and L’Oreal Women of Worth award.

As well as being recognized for her considerable charity work, Belding is both an entrepreneur and an activist in her community. She has launched Matching Excess and Need for Stability (MEANS), a free online network that connects thousands of food pantries, soup kitchens, and other non-profits with donors of surplus food. There are approximately 3,000 groups are involved in the MEANS database. Ever since its founding in 2015, MEANS has helped distribute more than 1.8 million pounds of food according to the MEANS database website. The organizations work has been recognized by the Washington Post.

“I spoke today (Mar. 20) on a little bit of my high school experience and what it’s like to be an entrepreneur at my age and really just how it is possible to do what we’ve done as a team of young people, and that high school is not the rest of your life, I promise,” Belding said.

In an interview with Belding, she said that she wants to show high school students that just because they may not be able to vote yet, doesn’t mean that their restricted from doing something to better the world.