In room T-6 in Goffstown High School’s tech wing, students from every grade fill the room, bustling about. They grab out of buckets filled with crayons, markers, and colored pencils and pick out colorful pieces of construction paper. There are so many students that some spill out into the room across the hall with their materials. Soon, they all get to work, talking and laughing with friends as they do so.
These students are all members of FBLA (Future Business Leaders of America) and they are working on one of their several recent community service projects. In this project, members gathered after school on November 8th to make cards for veterans to thank them for their service and wish them a Happy Veterans Day.
Card writing was a very successful project for the club. President of FBLA, Mae Sealy, shared that “The feedback from the community was great, the liberty house where we sent our thank you letters to the veterans was extremely grateful for our donation.”
This community service project was just one of the many that FBLA has already completed this year. The club kicked off in the early months of the school year, participating in a suicide prevention walk. Following this, FBLA collected canned goods to be donated to local homeless shelters, took part in a trash pickup throughout Goffstown, and started a clothing drive, set to run until December, to collect and donate winter clothing to a number of different shelters. Recently, the club volunteered at the Make-A-Wish holiday party held on December 3rd, where volunteers from the club celebrated the holidays with young children in the program.
New and returning members agree that doing community service through FBLA is an excellent opportunity. New member and sophomore, Paige Winters, says “It’s awesome to be able to do community service with FBLA, I can get hours in for college and it’s really rewarding to help the community.”
This year, FBLA is doing more community service than ever before, raising club expectations while looking to continue Goffstown’s legacy as the number one state chapter. They have held this position of the number one FBLA chapter in New Hampshire for the last three years. The club is receiving a lot of positive recognition from the community and will continue to participate in different projects throughout the year.
The community service done by the club depends on the members’ participation as they are able to sign up for the events they want to help with. This year, Sealy stated, “I think that FBLA is off to a great start! We have had immense changes and growth all for the better. I’ve noticed members becoming more active and participating more, the expectations have gotten much higher this year and I think every member is stepping up.”
