FVHS’s FCCLA students won many different awards while at the North Carolina State Leadership Conference in Greensboro, March 17-18. About 1000 students from across the state participated, and FVHS won some of its categories. First and second place winners get to go on to nationals in Washington, DC, from July 6-10.
Senior Ivy Smith and Junior Alex Walace won first place for Public Policy Advocate. Senior Jason Morales-Morales won second in Hospitality, Tourism and Recreation. Junior Abby Meaney got in the top five for Leadership. Junior Annais Mandel won first place in Sports Nutrition. Seniors Neema Maina and Amber Palencia-Sereno won an award for Repurpose and Redesign for making a dress out of reused and recycled materials. Seniors Erin Fahringer and Grace Meaney won in the top five in Event Management. Junior Morgan Bidwell and senior Braelynn Wagner won first in Focus on Children.
Juniors Mia Huerto and Hailey Parziale won second place for Food Innovations. They designed a smoothie, and they also worked on making the packaging recyclable and good for the environment.
Huerto said, “We were in the Food Innovations part of the project, and we made a smoothie with natural ingredients to help athletes and people just looking for better drinks to have.”
The two worked to make a drink with no artificial flavors or added sugar. The smoothie was a tropical smoothie with strawberries, mango, pineapple, freshly squeezed orange juice, coconut water, acai, blackberry pulp, green tea and monk fruit for natural sweetener.
Huerto said, “We took that feedback and we looked back at the ingredients and looked for more ways to improve the ingredients, like the texture, the taste, the color, the nutrition value, and then we made a nutritional label.”
Huerto and Parziale ended up making a special program where if consumers turned in five empty bottles, they could get a free bottle. They wanted to help the environment by recycling the smoothie containers.
Wagner said, “Me and my friend Morgan started to plan our project in November… We chose our category, Focus On Children. So throughout the couple months we were working on it, and we hosted an event in February.”
These awards show how students work so hard. They are really involved in the club and have an interest in their future. These students received feedback on what they made. Students also designed a website and flyers for their competition.
“It was a really good experience, especially with leadership. Now, I’m talking to colleges about it, and they’re really excited about it just because of the leadership and responsibility,” said Wagner.
