Photo courtesy of Jane Hanna
The Family, Career and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA) traveled to Greensboro from April 9 to 11 for the State Leadership Conference. All members of the organization came home with a title and will continue to Nationals in Atlanta at the end of June.
“This is only my second year in FCCLA, but compared to last year, this year has gone a lot better,” president Rachel McWilliams said. We had 14 people go to competition in Greensboro and all 14 are going to Nationals. Most of the people that went won gold, but there were a few silvers and one bronze medal.”
FCCLA is a national student organization that has a mission of promoting leadership among students within the areas of family and consumer sciences. Students who participate in the organization have taken a CTE related class. Through a long preparation process, projects and presentations relating to family, work and societal issues are constructed to present at competitions.
“There are a lot of different aspects to FCCLA,” said McWilliams. “It’s not just focusing on business or on healthcare, like a lot of other CTE organizations. It entitles any occupation that has to do with people, which is what I like about it.”
Although members are active in many different areas, one of the largest components is competing at the state conference.
“Each student picks the activity that they want to participate in,” advisor Jane Hanna said. “There are probably 40 or 50 different areas that they can choose from. Each student chooses a specific category, I provide them with the rubric that they will be judged off of, and once they begin creating their projects, I try to encourage them in areas that I think they might need some help on.”
Early on in the school year, members of FCCLA begin their projects and presentations.
“There are individual and group projects that we work on throughout the year,” treasurer Shannon Brennan said. “Especially for group projects, we work on them and occasionally present them to Ms. Hanna. She then gives us feedback and advice on them.”
Senior Kailey Williams, who takes part in the fashion construction event, crafted a prom dress.
“I started the process in October, but didn’t actually begin crafting the dress until January,” Williams said. “I sketched the design for the dress first. Then, I made a version out of muslin to have it fit to my body. I wanted the dress to resemble my original design as close as possible, so the process of changing the patterns from paper to the actual material took the longest.”
After projects are completed and taken to competition, members present to judges and are evaluated based on components such as the execution of the presentation and demonstrations of the process of completion.
“I had to present the prom dress,” Williams said. “There were different parts that I had to talk about as well as my planning process. They evaluated my construction of the dress, my presentation and my board.”
Junior Abby Goyea participated in the parliamentary procedure event.
“Practice, practice, practice,” Goyea said. “Especially for my event, we have to run mock meetings in the correct business format so that when we get to the stage of competition, we will do well. The whole team put in a lot of effort and really practiced this year so I’m really proud, especially of the people who have never even heard of parliamentary procedure before. They had to learn many new things.”
The team is feeling excited and is getting ready to take on Nationals.
“We feel pretty confident, but there’s still a lot of improvements that we need to make before we go to Atlanta,” McWilliams said. “We are planning to improve our projects that were already made to take them the next level.”
Sophomore Kharrington Godbee agreed.
“States were such a great experience,” Godbee said. “I’m excited to continue to Atlanta with the rest of the team.”
– By Grace Lake
