At 6:00 a.m. on October 27, a cozy yellow bus left the Gibson Southern parking lot to start the Family Career and Community Leaders of America field trip. It took three hours for the FCCLA group to get to the Hendricks County Fairgrounds, just east of Indianapolis, Ind. 

School Family And Consumer Sciences teacher Jill Vieira first entered the role of FCCLA club leader because she wanted the kids in her program, FACS, to have a club too. Having no previous experience allowed her to explore what it was she wanted to do.

“I am learning right along with everybody else as we go along,” Vieira said.

Despite being a relatively new club leader, this is not the first time Gibson Southern students have attended the Fall Rally in the past.

“This is the third time now,” Vieira said. “I knew when it was coming up. Once we had our meeting to see who wanted to join FCCLA, we decided that this was the first thing coming up, [and asked] who wanted to go?”

The group consisted of 20 girls who represented the Gibson Southern FCCLA chapter. The cold, brisk 6 a.m. weather did not stop the FCCLA group from having a good time. 

When the group arrived at the fairgrounds, they were a little late due to members being late to arrive at the school. Once they arrived, the girls were divided into assigned color groups. Gibson Southern’s FCCLA group was put into the black group with other schools from across the state.

The Culinary Demo was up first. The girls watched as an instructor taught them how to safely boil apples and showed them how to make apple slushies. Next was Financial fitness, where the groups learned how to protect their money, make a plan to save money and practice safe spending habits. 

After the groups sat through the “Road Trip To Success” demonstration, where they learned about elevator speeches and practiced them with their group, they ate a boxed lunch of a sandwich, chips and a cookie.

“I am partial to the convention this year compared to other years because the last time we went it was at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, which had a cool atmosphere,” Vieira said. “The next year we went, it was at Purdue University, which [it] doesn’t get any better than Purdue University, so that was fun. But, it was good this time. They did a good job.”

The community service activity was the favorite activity of the day for many of the girls. 

“Normally, my favorite part is getting to meet new people from other schools,” senior FCCLA Officer Beth Weber said. “But, this year we had to stay in our own group because of COVID. But, I really liked making the goody bags for the health care workers.”

Weber was not alone, as senior Kennedy Wilzbacher said this was also her favorite part of the day.

On the way back home, the bus of girls was lively, as they talked about good leadership skills and their favorite part of the convention.

“I think a good leader listens and they let people know that they genuinely care about them and they delegate,” Viera said.