FINDING INNER STRENGTH

In a night of roses, gavels and red-and-white tassels, Holyoke Family, Career and Community Leaders of America students gathered Monday, April 24, in the Holyoke JR/SR High School commons to cap off the 2022-23 year for the organization in Member Recognition Night.

“Your children are amazing,” the group’s Advisor Karen Ortner told the parents assembled. “I always say that you get out of FCCLA what you put into it. What you choose to do shapes the entire year.”

Lighting candles to symbolize FCCLA’s personal and community objectives, group members installed new officers for its 2023-24 season: Chapter President Alma Alejandra, a senior, handed a gavel to junior and upcoming President Elyce Sisseck. Sisseck, in turn, passed on her position of vice president to junior Elly Brown; Elly passed her secretary positon to junior Aleida Millan; senior Jimena Nuñez passed both her treasurer and reporter positions to juniors Leslie Carrasco Brown and Hannah Lindholm respectively; Millan passed her position of historian to junior Azury Chaparro Rangel;  Chaparro Rangel passed her position of parliamentarian to freshman Roslynn Doorn; and Millan passed her position of student relations representative to sophomore Fatima Nuñez.

Picking FCCLA’s Member of the Year required a final voter to break a four-way tie and choose a student among Alejandre, Carrasco Brown, Marely Favela – a freshman – and finally, Millan, who took home the award.

“Our last nominee has been involved in not just the vast majority of chapter projects,” Ortner said, “but has been in [a] prime position to help with nearly all our [Family and Consumer Sciences] projects as a student in multiple classes.

“She has shown herself as a leader time and time again, helped advise younger members in their projects, and been an amazing promoter of FCCLA and its benefits both inside and outside the classroom.”

Both Alma and Jimena, recognized as four-year seniors within the group, gained $500 FCCLA Leadership Scholarships, marked by red-and-white tassels designating those who have gone above and beyond. Among other qualifications, JR/SR High School Principal Angie Powell said seniors eligible must have been involved in the group for three years, hold a grade-point average of at least 3.0, demonstrate good character and “have been accepted into a postsecondary institute of learning.”

Fifteen of Holyoke’s 21 FCCLA members achieved the ROSE award, which stands for Recognition of Superior Effort. To gain the award – and, naturally, a rose to go with it – students must earn two-thirds of a chapter’s possible points by participating in meetings and available activities.

Three parents – Jessica Sisseck, Amanda Brown and Luz Nuñez – acted “as a guiding light” for FCCLA members, according to Alejandra, by accompanying the students to competitions, cooking, fundraising and evaluating projects. “Many of the chapter’s activities and accomplishments would not have been possible” without their support, added Elyce.

For the Friends of FCCLA award, Elly said, “we are privileged to honor someone who has guided us through the wild... They really showed the Holyoke FCCLA chapter through the jungle of multiple events and conferences.”

This person happened to be Amanda Brown, Elly’s mother.

FCCLA presentation

Holyoke School District’s Board of Education witnessed a presentation to begin its Tuesday, April 18, meeting by Holyoke FCCLA, represented that day by Elly – the organization’s district president as well as local chapter vice president – and Ortner. Both of them gave the board a rundown via PowerPoint slides on FCCLA’s mission and activies throughout the 2022-23 school year.

As “a career and technical student leadership organization,” Ortner told the board, FCCLA aims to “promote personal growth and leadership development.” These goals, according to one of the slides, can be developed through character building, creative and critical thinking, interpersonal communications, practical knowledge, and career preparation.

The group is particularly proud, she said, of its “focus on the family as the basic unit of society.”

“Strong families make strong communities to make a strong country,” she noted.

Elly launched into a bevy of activities done by FCCLA this year, going back to its haunted maze in October, and also including highway cleanup, peach sales and – in conjunction with the Dragon Theatre Company production of “Shrek the Musical” – a dinner theater in mid November.

“I, myself, was an actress in ‘Shrek.’ I was the dragon,” Elly said, “so I was able to serve food while playing my role.”

Earlier that month, Holyoke’s chapter arrived at the Northeastern Plains District Fall Conference, hosted by Wray High School. There, about 260 FCCLA members assembled 125 blankets to help those in need. By vote, Holyoke FCCLA chose to donate its 12 blankets to Regent Park Nursing and Rehabilitation & Carriage House Assisted Living center in town for the winter season.

Moving into December, FCCLA’s Carrasco Brown hosted a project through We Help Two’s Funky Socks Campaign, which Elly considered “so cool, in my opinion.” Seventy-two socks donated to Carrasco Brown, according to Ortner, will be in turn donated to a homeless shelter during FCCLA’s National Leadership Conference this July in Denver.

While Carrasco Brown did not attain her initial goal of of 500 pairs of socks, Ortner continued, the student did succeed in raising $990, equal to 22% of a clean water project to help build wells in the African country of Rwanda.

“It’s cool to see how our chapter in Holyoke really reaches the nation,” Elly said.

Members Anna Hayes and Edel Ramos, Elly continued, organized a first-responders appreciation lunch in February, which also included care packages for Holyoke’s emergency medical technicians.

“We had all our members serve,” Elly said. “It was really nice to say ‘thank you’ to the first responders of our community.”

To “bring holiday cheer,” Ortner stated later, FCCLA’s Doorn, Favela and Valeria Morales Guereque reached out to Regent Park. For the center, the students painted pumpkins with the residents for Halloween; brought a banner signed by Holyoke students for Valentine’s Day; donated fleece blankets made at the conference for Christmas; and collaborated with Better Beef Makers 4-H to make, decorate and deliver cookies.

FCCLA also collaborated with FFA in March to hold their most successful service sale ever, with more than 400 community members in attendance. By auctioning off members for eight hours of guaranteed work, the groups raised $49,600 for both chapters. This sale, Elly noted, “is super, super important” when gathering funds for regional and national competitions.

“I don’t think I’d be where I’m at financially for FCCLA if it weren’t for the service sale,” she said, adding that collaboration with FFA proved enjoyable.

Addressing the board, Elly said, “I am so thankful for all of you supporting FCCLA and really just making it a journey for each member. I know my personal journey is different from my other friends who are in FCCLA and I think that’s so important. FCCLA really roots out [the] strengths in everybody.”

Build-your-own regionals

At the state level, according to Ortner, FCCLA began to schedule its regional confererences – which the chapter “kind of [revolves] around” – during the Easter weekend, conflicting with student holiday schedules and religious services. The change “started out as an accident by a state advisor” around 2013, she told the school board, “and then the precedent was set and they did it on purpose.” Because of the issue, the Northeast Plains District of FCCLA decided in 2023 to organize its own event in Loveland – the Regional Leadership and Career Conference – at a time more palatable to its members: Wednesday, March 29 to Friday, March 31. 

Participating in the process were members from Holyoke, Haxtun, Merino, Yuma and Akron. Within a PowerPoint slide, Ortner referred to the event as a “full-on ‘Mini State’ conference.”

“We were the five who did all the planning,” she said in a later interview. “Someone has to make the certificates and get those printed; somebody has to be in charge of making a script for the officer team. There are so many different pieces and I couldn’t have done it without them.”

In addition to the five towns, Sterling brought some of its FCCLA members as well and Wray brought its district officers, though it still chose to attend State.

Leading up to organizing the new event, Ortner told the school board, she tried to reason with State FCCLA, to no avail.

Pre-coronavirus pandemic, she continued, conference organizers managed to shift the conferences to earlier dates. Post-COVID, she said, those accomodations stopped.

From around 2018 onward, she said, the next seven out of 10 years of state conferences were scheduled during Easter weekend, causing “our little corner of the world” to become “very vocally upset.” 

To “help influence these conversations,” she joined the State FCCLA Board of Directors from 2019-22. The final year of this period, she said, the board sent out a survey to see whether students preferred a Wednesday through Friday competion; or one Thursday through Saturday, during Easter weekend – though the survey did not specifically mention Easter, she said. Eighty-four out of 92 respondants, or 91 percent, stated they wanted the conference to go Wednesday through Friday. The state board, nonetheless, kept the original schedule.

“They did not want to touch the topic with a 10-foot pole, which was a very frustrating thing,” Ortner said. “I offered to help any way I could, but they haven’t budged.”

To organize the district’s own conference, she said, required “an $18,000 cash flow” and a $3,000 grant; Ortner noted she “had a pretty big role” in the process, budgeting, scheduling, writing letters to school officials, arranging and signing a contract with Embassy Suites hotel chain, and more.

Obtaining the $18,000 proved “a scary thing,” she said later, as she needed to determine almost exactly how many people from each FCCLA group would attend and “add on 10% for incidentals.” 

“It was terrifying; we had no cushion,” she said, “so we just had to be like, ‘You’ve got to show up or we’re all screwed.’”

The “crazy years” spent planning and organizing the event, according to Ortner, proved vital for her in building up self-confidence. Adam Carriker – a former defensive end for the NFL’s St. Louis Rams and Washington Redskins, currently the Commanders – served as main speaker at the Regional Leadership and Career Conference. Naturally, given the circumstances, he spoke on the subject of growing through adversity.

“I don’t anyone can fully describe what Mrs. Ortner has taken on this year,”  Principal Powell told the board. “She took the reins of this. She made it something absolutely phenomenal and it was a great experience for our students.”

The event’s “Mini State” format also provided unique opportunities, according to Elly; for example, at the FCCLA dance, she got to serve as a deejay.

“I don’t think that experience could have been at a state level or national level,” Elly told the board. “I had people go onto my computer and play the songs they wanted, and it was so cool!”

Elly herself gained the title of district president from former President Jimena Nuñez, whom she called her “role model.” Alejandre, in addition, helped organize the event as then district secretary.

The Holyoke chapter brought home four gold medals and two silver medals for their projects, discussed in an April 12 issue of The Holyoke Enterprise.

“We had no bronze medals,” Elly said, “which I think shows how Holyoke FCCLA members really go above and beyond.”

Holyoke FCCLA will be taking nine students to the National Leadership Conference, Ortner said; it also intends to continue organizing alternate conferences any time a state conference falls on Easter weekend.

“Because we can,” she told the board. “We are the Family, Career and Community Leaders of America and we believe in spending time with families for the holidays.”