You can take just about anything you feel strongly about and put it into a competitive event. FCCLA offers many STAR Events for you to compete in. You can grab a friend or two who share your interest, or just take on a project solo. Either way you will be getting involved. 

We’ve all heard the horror stories that come from texting and driving. Is that something you care a lot about? If you conduct an event for students to simulate texting and driving, it could be a Chapter Service Project STAR Event. It could easily fall under the Focus on Children STAR Event category as well. Or it could be entered into National Programs in Action STAR Event under Families Acting For Community Traffic Safety, better known as FACTS, or Leadership Service in Action. 

Maybe you love kids, create a project about getting involved with them through enrollment in an occupational early childhood program with the Early Childhood project. 

Have you learned about Parliamentary Procedure? Get a group together and learn to conduct an official FCCLA business meeting. 

There is a STAR Event for anything. Do you know what you want to do when you graduate high school? Or maybe you just have a career in mind that you’d like to explore and learn more about? Career Investigation could help you get a jump start in expanding your knowledge on a career you may want to pursue. Another career oriented project is Job Interview, which let’s you develop a portfolio, participate in an interview, and communicate an understanding of job requirements for the career that YOU choose. 

Are you an organizer? Good with numbers? Why not plan an event? Life Event Planning allows you to create an event and keep track of expenses to make it happen. 

Have a knack for design? With Fashion Design you can design and market your own clothing styles. Maybe you are more interested in interior designing. With Interior Design you can design interiors that meet the needs of clients. A project for those who are very creative is Recycle and Redesign, which lets you pick a used item to recycle and redesign into a brand new product! 

Do you have a great chapter? Show everyone. Tell us about the things you do with Chapter In Review. Does your chapter do a great community service project? Do you want to start one? A service 

project created within your chapter that makes a worthwhile contribution to families, schools, and communities directly addresses the Chapter Service Project STAR Event. 

The Food Innovations project recognizes participants who demonstrate knowledge of food development by creating an original formula, testing the product, and developing a marketing strategy. So if you are into making food, why not try this out? 

Hospitality, Tourism, and Recreation is a great one too; you can make a real business. Demonstrate your knowledge of hospitality, tourism, and recreation. Create a restaurant or a hotel! 

Do you love FCCLA? Wouldn’t you love to tell everyone about this incredible organization? Promote and Publicize FCCLA. Use your communication skills to educate your school and community about FCCLA. Maybe you’ll even pick up some more members for your chapter! 

There are online competitive events as well. Ever hear of Stories For Change? You identify an issue concerning families, careers, or communities; research, and then develop a digital story to advocate for positive change. YOU can be a voice of change. 

No Kid Hungry National Outreach Project recognizes chapters that participate in the “No Kid Hungry” Share our Strength National Outreach Project. Participants will use Family and Consumer Sciences and Related Occupations skills to address ending childhood hunger. 

Good with technology? Use your skills to submit a poster online! The virtual poster will just need to address an issue related to one of the three Student Body National Program units: Eat Right, Be Fit, and Make Healthy Choices. 

Many of these projects can easily be adapted to tie into one another. There is absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t use your voice to make a change or to show us what you can do. 

I have been competing for years. My partner and I have fit many different things we care about into the guidelines for several events. You can take whatever it is you are passionate about and surely receive recognition for doing something you are interested in. STAR Events are a great way to get involved in FCCLA. 

So find something you are passionate about, and Discover Your Voice with STAR Events. 

When I say, “Discover Your Voice”, what comes to mind? Probably not the FCCLA National Programs. So discover your voice by using the FCCLA National Programs. You have probably already had a part in at least one of these programs. Maybe it was Community Service, or maybe even Power of One. I am not sure what you know about national programs, but I am here to help! 

There are 8 FCCLA National Programs. Want to discover your voice? Just try one of these programs! “Career Connection” is a program where you learn about specific careers and skills for success in the future. Projects for this may involve job shadowing, peer education, or career research. 

“Leadership Service in Action” is discovering that you can make a difference within your community.  

The next program is “FACTS”, or “Families Acting for Community Traffic Safety.” In this program, you educated your peers on ways to prevent vehicle accidents and keeping them safe while driving, lowering the risk of the number one cause of death in youth in America. If your passion is child safety, use your voice in seatbelt safety or bus safety. If your passion is teen safety, use your voice on texting and distracted driving. 

“Families First,” the next program, is strengthening your family using the FCCLA peer education program. Use your voice to strengthen family communication by holding a family game night in your home. You can also use your voice to help families in hardship by sponsoring a food drive or donating to your local food bank. The next program, “Financial Fitness”, is being able to manage your money wisely. You can use your voice in peer education to inform teens about consumer skills, or use your financial fitness skills to plan and organize fundraising activities in your chapter. 

The most in depth National program is “Power of One,” where you show that you have the power to make a positive change, one goal at a time, by working through 5 specific units. If you find that your voice is weakest in public speaking, then you could do a project for “Power of One- A Better You.” If you find that there aren’t enough voices talking about how great FCCLA really is, do a project in “Power of One- Speaking Out for FCCLA.” 

“Stop the Violence” is where you help to reduce violence by recognizing or reporting it, and help others become aware of the violence situations around them. Use your voice to create bullying awareness, date violence awareness, or child abuse awareness. 

The last program is “Student Body,” where you make healthy choices, eat right, and exercise. Use your voice for projects about fitness, eating a balanced diet, or healthy living. 

As you can see, finding a place for your voice is very easy when you use the FCCLA National Programs. I encourage you all to choose your voice, and MAKE IT HEARD! 

FCCLA, Family Career Community Leaders of America, is an organization that has helped over 9,000,000 teens since 1945. FCCLA has a mission to help teens discover their voice in themselves and in society. As a state officer, I have definitely come to learn that. FCCLA has shown me that I am a strong speaker and that I can do anything that I put my mind to, by speaking up and out. I have spoken in front of people that I never thought I’d speak in front of, let alone have the guts to. 

FCCLA has not only helped me, but it has helped my chapter. As a chapter it’s brought a lot of us together because it pushes us to communicate with each other and be close. FCCLA has been involved in my school for years. My advisor, Chef Aaron Yurek, has been involved for many years as well. But I owe a lot of my success in FCCLA to him. He was the one that told me I could when I was unsure of myself. He was the one that told me to go for the gold and be a state officer. He pushes me to be a successful worker and leader. And that has shown me a lot. 

Being in FCCLA and being involved at my school has helped me realize that I can do that for other people. But that can only happen if I speak up. And I have spoken up. I have told people that they can. And I show them that they can by being a role model. If I can, then you can, and it becomes a chain reaction. So speak up and show people that they can be and do whatever they’d like. It can happen. Speak up today. And keep the chain reaction going.