Searcy (LP) Every year, FCCLA has two national cluster meetings. This year meetings were held in Denver, Colorado and Orlando, Florida. Of course when the officer team found out there was a chance they could spend a weekend in Florida, they were willing to do everything in their power to make that happen. It started with a mass amount of fundraisers. They car-hopped for tips at the Sonic on 16, make chicken spaghetti for teachers, sold monograms, worked at Baileys, and made poppy seed chicken for teachers. Junior, Alexis Sample, claims, “We knew what we had to do to get where we wanted to be, so we just came up with Allan and went through with it. It was hard, but we succeeded.” The members, and their adviser have worked towards an ultimate goal, and because of their hard work and dedication, the six officers as well as their adviser, Mrs. Johnston, were graced with the opportunity to attend the National Cluster meeting in Orlando, Fl.
The meeting was built around new concepts of leadership- what a leader is, what a leader should be, and how to lead. There were many breakout sessions were these concepts were discussed. The members also attended breakout sessions such as a crash courses in FACTS (Families Acting for Community Traffic Safety) , Financial Fitness, Power of One, and Community Service. All of these and many more are national programs of FCCLA, meaning that these programs are something the club wants of its members to focus on. Along with the breakout sessions, the members had the opportunity to experience two different keynote speakers. They had the pleasure of listening to the experiences, advice, and life lessons from both Eddie Slowikowski and Cara Filler. Cara Filler chose to tell about how she lost a loved one, her sister, in a car accident. Her story resonated with SHS Senior, Brittney Guthrie, who has now changed her actions. Guthrie said, “It’s normal for me to be on my phone to control the music while I’m driving or if I get a text I’ll look at it and probably respond, but after hearing her message, I don’t get on my phone. I’ll just set it on shuffle and leave it alone because I never know what could happen.”
The six members from SHS who attended this conference plans to bring their newfound knowledge back to SHS. Junior, Ane Elise Pitt claims, “ We didn’t just go to this meeting for our own personal gain. That’s not what FCCLA is about. We spent a weekend learning how to improve as teens, and how to spread that message. Now it’s time for us to share what we learned.”
