On Wednesday, November 20th, Morgan’s FCCLA club joined with the Spanish club to make arepas, a cornmeal cake with a crispy surface and meat interior that is popular in Colombia and Venezuela. This was done to provide the club with a fresh look and new opportunities, particularly to engage with a different group.

Ms. Murphy founded the FCCLA club in the late fall of 2023, providing students with the opportunity to investigate family and consumer sciences themes of their choice, develop leadership abilities, and meet new people from FCCLA chapters across the state. She not only serves as the advisor but also teaches a variety of electives, including Culinary Arts 1 & 2, Advanced Culinary & Baking, Introduction to Interior & Clothing Design, Early Childhood, and Early Childhood Education (community college credit).

Maddy Grenon, a sophomore a part of the club this year, said, “I like it because it gives me the opportunity to meet a lot of people with new ideas, and I love to cook and bake, which makes it even more fun!” Grenon is now a member, knowing why kids join the club and why it’s so appealing. Students now have the chance to do exciting things with friends and strangers, gain new skills, and develop themselves and their town.

The phrase “Live life in Red” represents FCCLA, a global group that helps students and instructors focus on numerous youth issues, including family connections, substance misuse, peer pressure, sustainability, nutrition and fitness, teen violence, and job development. FCCLA is an acronym for Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America, and it is run in both public and private schools. However, each state has a distinct number of “chapters,” or FCCLA programs. As of 2023, Connecticut had 15 chapters and 242 members.

FCCLA was founded at a convention in Chicago, Illinois, where 29 home economics leaders, scientifically educated men and women, met. These were once thought to be people in charge of household administration, but they are now classified as FCCLA teachers. Prior to this, it was known as Future Homemakers of America. Edna P. Amidon is credited with establishing the organization. To begin, Janet Barber served as Georgia’s first state adviser, with Amidon as head. They contemplated organizing a single national student group and teaching children to be leaders both at home and at work. 

FCCLA celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2020, having been founded in 1945. Due to the COVID-19 epidemic, the National Leadership Conferences in 2020 and 2021 were held online, with some functions, such as the 2021 national officer elections, taking place in person in Nashville, Tennessee.

Here at Morgan, there are twenty-nine students involved, although some play more substantial roles. Nikki Zhou, a junior, is president; Hannah Sharp is vice president; Bianca Nasciemineto, a sophomore, is vice president of membership; Libby Burns is vice president of public relations; and Maddy Grenon is vice president of community service. They meet in the seminar room every Thursday at 2:15 p.m. to discuss upcoming events. However, their main activities are cooking/baking, fundraising, educational projects, and leadership development.

Every year, at their most exciting event, club members travel to a different location, such as a college campus or a hotel. Leadership conferences are offered in the fall and spring; the Courtyard Hartford Cromwell Hotel hosted the event last year. These events provide a perfect opportunity to network with members and advisers from all over the country, attend leadership sessions, compete in events, explore career paths, and learn from industry professionals (FCCLA). They will attend while also continuing to collaborate with other groups at The Morgan School, developing new meals, coming up with new ideas, hosting various activities, and so on.

Murphy defines this organization’s core goal as “working towards being more professional, thinking about your career goals, working towards being a leader, not just within yourself, but [you know] in your friend group, school…”