What is FCCLA and my experience with it?

Hello all Eli here with a bit more of an educational post. This post is about something I've done since my freshman year. It's something only available to those in america.

Sorry to those that live outside of america. Also please let me know if you have something related to it in your country in the comments.I'll be breaking down what this exactly is.

So let's start with the acronym of it. F stands for Family the C stands for Career the other C stands for Community the L stands for Leaders and the A stands for America

FCCLA=FAMILY CAREER AND COMMUNITY LEADERS OF AMERICA

What do we do exactly?

Well we do things for the community of course. Through this organization kids are taught leadership skills and each year our chapter gets to choose a project to do. We are given a selection of choices. Like last year we used the money we raised throughout the year towards buying items like socks and hygiene products and put them in individual packaging. And we donated it to a homeless shelter.

The year before we did project gratitude where we pulled together the chapter money for the year and bought a bunch of things and put together a bunch of care packages and sent them off to people in the military that are away from home to provide them with things they may be low on and may need.

We do this because we are being taught to care for the community and how to be good leaders. To be a good leader you have to have communication skills and care about the people rather than yourself. Being able to donate to the community and doing what's best for them rather than what's best for you

Here is a screenshot from my state FCCLA page of what the mission and motto is

Lets break down some of the in that why don't we?

Family Consumer Sciences Education

So that is classes that People can take in highschool (as long as they're offered) they are classes that teach us skills we will need after high school. I'll list the ones that are in my school

Principles of food

Global foods

Food Science

Fashion Design

Interior Design

Career and College Readiness

Financial Management

There are more but you get the point. They're all classes that most definitely benefit the students in learning skills they will need after highschool.

Competition

There is a thing called competition of which we can do with the organization. I participated in competition this year and I'm moving up to compete in state. There is many different categories you can compete in. I specifically competed in Career Investigation. Some of the categories were

Illustrated Talk

Recycle and redesign

Career Investigation

Job interview

and so many more categories but those were only a few. Students had to consistently work on their projects and then present it in front of a few judges. They had a rubric on how to score us. The maximum time I had was 10 minutes.

What my project was

My project was researching Graphic design and I started it in my Career and College readiness class. I scored silver and I've moved upto state. I will be competing in state on the 25th of April and will be there on the 26th to find out what I got. Here is a picture of the metal I got

The theme of 2019

So each year there is a theme for FCCLA this year it is BElieve in YOUrself. Which I absolutely love. It's important to believe in ourselves because not everyone will. It's this year's theme because we need to learn how to be confident in who we are and those were my advisor's words. Here is my part of it.

My reasons for loving this year's theme is because it doesn't exclude anybody. And this organization is most definitely Lgbt+ friendly. Everyone is so nice and I've gone to events within it where we do team building exercises. Part of the theme is highlighted. To better explain it "Be you" FCCLA wants people to be themselves. Don't hide who you are because You're afraid of judgement. Be you because you believe in yourself.

Let out the part of you that has been hiding and let yourself be who you are. Treat yourself well and be confident in you.

What are the FCCLA Colors?

Red. If you couldn't tell by now. We do have uniforms when we go to places like competition or conferences. We do get a red blazer. It's really nice. We believe in helping each other and working together and nobody being excluded so I absolutely love this actually and their motto behind it "Unite in red"

My Personal Experience

So I have been in FCCLA for 3 years now. In my chapter (group) specifically our advisor has always told us to plan things out for the year at the first meeting that we have in august/September. We always plan amazing things to do. Recently when my advisor was driving me home from competition I came out to my advisor. Of which she has known me since I was 3 years old. She already knows I'm gay af. But the thing is. I wasn't out as trans yet. She asked me some questions and she pretty much understood it. I didn't really ask her to use my preferred name and pronouns because I'm not fully out yet. People would get really confused as there is another Eli in my school.

She is probably one of the sweetest people I know. She has always genuinely cared about her students and me. I spend my lunch period with her due to drama in the cafeteria. But she took it really well and she accepts me. That's also an amazing thing in FCCLA people aren't excluded. I've been excluded from everything my whole life. And I my first year we were at an event and I had nobody to sit with so I say at a table alone since I didn't know anybody. 3 people ran upto me inviting me over to their table since they didn't want me to be alone and wanted to get to know me better.

That's all for this post. If you have anymore questions feel free to ask in the comments. I love y'all and take care of yourselves! Eli out! :v: :two_hearts:

Note:

Not all highschools have the option of FCCLA or Family and Consumer Sciences classes. I feel extremely lucky to be in this.