2 of Wasatch’s Daily Routines May Surprise You
- December 12th, 2024
Every day, Wasatch Elementary starts the day off with two special traditions in their announcements...
Welcome, everyone, to the next episode of Provo City School District’s What’s Up With The Sup’ podcast. I am Superintendent Wendy Dau. Today we are talking with Rachel Rue, who is a junior, Edna Carabantes, who is a senior, and Dayton Ferris, who is a senior. They are all FCCLA officers from Timpview High School.
And if you don’t know what FCCLA is, stay tuned. But first, here are our updates.
I’m here today with our FCCLA officers from Timpview High School.
We have Rachel Rue, who is a junior. Welcome.
Rachel Rue: Thank you.
Wendy Dau: And we have Edna Carabantes.
Edna Carabantes: Yes.
Wendy Dau: I’m going to say, say your last name right.
Edna Carabantes: Carabantes.
Wendy Dau: Carabantes.
Edna Carabantes: Yes.
Wendy Dau: All right. Excellent. And she’s a senior. Welcome.
Edna Carabantes: Thank you.
Wendy Dau: And Dayton Ferris, who is also a senior. Welcome.
Dayton Ferris: Thank you.
Wendy Dau: When I was in school, they did not call this program FCCLA.
So there might be some people who are old like me. Who have no idea what this is. So tell us what FCCLA stands for and what your organization focuses on.
Edna Carabantes: Well, FCCLA stands for Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America. But in the past, it was called FHA, which was Future Homemakers of America.
Basically, what this is, is a non profit, student led organization. And it’s a national organization that helps people understand about family consumer science classes. Like early childhood education and like culinary arts or like the interior design classes. That’s what it kind of like circles around.
Wendy Dau: Excellent. So what made all of you interested in going into these classes and into this organization?
Rachel Rue: So for me freshman year, I started with child development and early childhood education And I also found out about FCCLA through those classes and I really enjoyed FCCLA just because it was a club that was really heavily involved in their community. Doing a lot of activities like every month and so many service projects So I found that this was a really club that was like ingrained in like school culture and the community.
Dayton Ferris: That’s awesome What about you Dayton? I had a few of my friends that were pretty big in the FCCLA, always advertising it to me. I had a friend like hand me the paper and say, sign up now. And so,
Wendy Dau: Oh, wow. Like aggressive peer pressure.
Dayton Ferris: It wasn’t peer pressure. I enjoyed it. He like took me to one of the activities.
I had lots of fun freshman year. And then after that, I just joined was, was not really part of it until more of my sophomore junior year. And ever since, yeah, just this. Been in love with everything FCCLA stands for, everything it does for like the community and everything.
Wendy Dau: That’s awesome. And what about you, Edna?
Edna Carabantes: It’s kind of the same thing as Dayton. It was a couple of friends that invited me to the activities to become a member. But I didn’t officially become a officer until my sophomore junior year. So that’s when I started getting heavily involved. But it was also thanks to my teacher, Miss Bunn, our advisor.
She always promotes it and she was always very sweet about it. And she was right.
Wendy Dau: She was right. That’s just the right thing to get involved with.
Edna Carabantes: Yes.
Wendy Dau: That’s awesome. And when you mentioned her name, all of your faces like glowed. You must love her. I love that. Well, we might talk about her more in just a minute, then.
When I think of FCCLA, I think about service projects are a big part of what the organization does. You were talking about it was a service organization. Can each of you share one of your favorite projects? Describe the result, why it was your favorite, how it influenced you or impacted you? Who wants to go first?
Rachel Rue: Yeah, I’ll go first.
Wendy Dau: Okay, perfect. Thanks, Rachel.
Rachel Rue: This year, our most recent service project was doing Dolls for Hope for the refugees. So we’re just making teddy bears and that happened last week on Friday. And I just really enjoyed that because we were all coming together going in the sewing room And all cutting out different shapes for the teddy bears and different fabrics. And during that time, I just felt so connected with everyone there and I was just so happy. Especially because of how many members we accumulated this year and how many people came to the service project last week and it just felt like the sense of community and how like what an important thing that we were doing for these people.
Wendy Dau: How many people are members of FCCLA? How many people were part of the service project?
Edna Carabantes: Um, we have over 80 members currently that signed up this year. For the service project, I think about 20 to 30 people showed up for that one, but we’re really glad that we still were able to bring that much people in.
Wendy Dau: For the refugee organization. Is it a refugee organization that’s here locally that you’re donating it to? Or is it a national organization?
Rachel Rue: From what I know it’s pretty local. Okay, but we were doing it based off of students like STAR event, which is their competition project. So just an extension of that but with having everyone help out for just that portion.
Wendy Dau: Oh, that’s fantastic. Okay, perfect. What about you Edna?
Edna Carabantes: Mine was definitely a couple years ago doing wooden toy cars for the homeless shelters of the like the kids in the homeless shelters
Wendy Dau: Yeah.
Edna Carabantes: And it was just really nice because we already had the shape done for us. We just had to sand them down, oil them, and make sure they were packed properly to get sent back to the factory that was helping us.
Okay.
But it was, it was definitely a great, like, service project. We had lots of donations of food because it was also a canned food drive.
Wendy Dau: Okay.
Edna Carabantes: But I would definitely say that’s my favorite out of all of them. Because we were able to bring so many people together. Like we had cute activities in the in the middle like we played bingo. And then it was really nice seeing the reaction from the kids because we were able to get some photos and some videos of their reactions getting the toy cars. So that was definitely my favorite service project.
Wendy Dau: That’s always great when you can see what the result is, the impact. Right. That’s pretty great. What about for you Dayton?
Dayton Ferris: Um, I’d actually have to agree with, and, uh, I love that service project. It was just really fun. At that time I was in an office, so I was just a member, I didn’t really know too much of, I knew these were for like kids at homeless shelters, I knew like that, I didn’t know like the reactions, just like the activity by itself, like, uh, sanding the tour cars, putting, dipping in oil, doing all that just with friends.
Just was just a really fun moment and just made me feel really connected with my community.
Wendy Dau: Who helps you come up with these ideas for the service projects? Is it members or is, does your teacher help you? How do, cause these are things I would be like, I would have no idea that this even exists. So how does that happen?
Dayton Ferris: We usually either go to one of our advisors to help us or we go looking on multiple different websites to see what service projects are around Utah that we could help or that we want to go help or those even an FCCLA national service project that every FCCLA chapter or school will participate in and this year it’s donating food to a food drive, the state project is to do that and it’s just a really nice thing to do.
That’s how we usually find our projects.
Wendy Dau: Okay.
Edna Carabantes: Every year the state officers, like, we have planning meetings and we decided that we would have a state service project. Whichever region can donate more food to the Utah Food Bank,
Wendy Dau: Okay.
Edna Carabantes: Then they’d win like a competition or like bragging rights.
Wendy Dau: Yes!
Edna Carabantes: It’s kind of like, motivation to have them like, Oh, okay. I want to help. Let’s just donate as much as we can to the Utah food bank.
Wendy Dau: Okay, perfect. So you also recently hosted a trunk or treat. I understand at Edgemont Elementary. Tell us a little bit about that. Like what goes into preparing for an event like this? I guess you’ve done this for a couple of years.
So what changed? What did you learn last year that then you changed about this year?
Dayton Ferris: So last year we wanted to do this. Old officers and like the old leadership of FCCLA thought of this idea and everyone loved it. It was more of last minute. It wasn’t the best organized. So this year, we knew we wanted to do it again since how fun the activity was, how it just was fun seeing our little kids go to, uh,
Wendy Dau: They’re so fun.
Dayton Ferris: Yeah, like, uh, trunk to trunk and just like, be like, oh, trick or treat. And like, it’s just, it’s just, it’s just a fun experience, everyone dressed up. So this year, we were like, we want to do this again, but we want to make sure we have more people that show up. We want to have like more trunks. We want to make sure Edgemont is more prepared.
And then we also want to make it so we have it just more organized. And then we also want to do a little bit of fundraising for our star events. So…
Wendy Dau: Good.
Dayton Ferris: So what we did was we went to Edgemont and we went to Timpview and we were like, hey, we want to do this again this year. And they both agreed to it.
And after we did that, we brainstormed some ideas and some things that we believe that we failed on last year and things we could have improved on so this year we thought of a new stamp rule. So we have like stamps I go around so kids can’t be going around trunk and trunk and and kind of…
Wendy Dau: They don’t do that You’re like, yes, they absolutely do that. Yeah.
Dayton Ferris: So we had a little stamp system.
Wendy Dau: That was a great idea.
Dayton Ferris: We gave each car a little stamp and they had to go around stamp out the card. And then we wanted to do some fundraising. So we decided to make a little popcorn balls, a little popcorn, caramel bars, and sell, uh, and hot chocolate both at the same time.
It was fun, helped us fundraise for our future star events and stuff like that. And then we also wanted to make sure it was more organized. So we had a section where you would park and then we had a section where most of the trunks were. And then we also thought it’d be really good and fun idea to implement.
Who has the best trunk? So if-
Wendy Dau: So, like a decorating contest, yeah.
Dayton Ferris: Decorating contest. And so we got our prizes. Most officers put in their own money to like make these, uh, prizes for these trunks. And then we handed them out to the best three, like trunks and one of them was like a 1920s car that that a guy brought it was really fun and then it was like this castle someone like made a makeshift castle and someone also made like a little makeshift pirate ship. And those are the other ones that won, but there was so many good trunks.
If you were there, you’d been shocked because these people are really creative.
Wendy Dau: That’s amazing. What about you, Rachel and Edna? What did you learn or what did you enjoy or what was different about this year?
Rachel Rue: So just like Dayton said, definitely it was way more organized this year. And we specifically like focused on like doing the stamp cards and making sure that every officer or volunteer had a role.
So like I was like helping in charge, like directing traffic. Dayton was helping with the food stand and concessions. And we were all just checking up on each other constantly. And I think that really helped it stay smooth and make sure that kids didn’t go around too many times. And we also handed out some candy to trunks that already ran out of candy.
Like, I felt like, although it wasn’t perfect, it was so much. Like, more well prepared and well rounded, and we think that even next year we’ll do even better.
Edna Carabantes: I unfortunately wasn’t there, but I was able to help plan it. So I remember in one of the meetings, we decided to see the pros and cons of what happened last year versus what we can do better this year.
And we had a whole list. We didn’t implement quite all of them, but we did implement most of those pros. And we were able to communicate between officers. We were able to sketch out a plan. Of where the cars can go, and we also like came up with like the stamping for like the kids and we just made sure to advertise it as much as we can.
So like announcements, flyers to elementary school teachers and high school teachers.
Wendy Dau: Oh, good.
Edna Carabantes: So we had like some English departments like show up to make a trunk and then we had some families.
I heard a lot of people texting me telling me like, wow, the Trunk or Treat was like, so good. And I’m like, I bet it was like, yeah, I bet it was.
Wendy Dau: Well, I think what that speaks to is that you can learn and grow, even if it doesn’t work out perfectly this time, you make adjustments and you just make it better next time. That’s going to be an important skill your entire life. I’m going to tell you that right now. So that’s awesome. So you’ve competed in FCCLA competitions and you’re preparing for this year’s competitions.
So tell us a little bit about some of the events that you compete in, how you prepare for them and what you learn as you’re going through these competitions. And if you want to tap into what you’ve done in years past and how this year is a little bit different, I’d just love for each of you to share.
Dayton Ferris: Our competition is called a STAR event. It’s a Students Taking Action with Recognition. In these STAR events, it goes from everything that you could most likely imagine. Most of it’s based around these FCS classes, but then there’s also some events that aren’t based around the FCS classes. Like, the event I competed in last year was Career Investigation, and instead of investigating, like, uh, something in the FCS or Family Consumer Sciences, I studied and talked to and got to get familiar with the industry of like software development and stuff like that.
So it doesn’t necessarily have to be around it. A lot of it is like those, um, baking and pastry and other events along those natures and like Say Yes to FCS and… those those projects are more based around it. But there’s also projects like leadership the one i’m competing in this year where you just keep track of how much of a leader you represent, you find a book and then you find a way to improve yourself, what you need to improve, how much you did improve, and then you get like, be evaluated, and see how good you do, and, uh, the star events are really fun, I suggest most people do them, because, It’s just always just a fun thing to do, even if you fail, I feel like a lot of people will learn from Star Events like public speaking, um, initiative, time management, like how to handle failure well, or in different ways, instead of looking at it as always like a negative.
Wendy Dau: Excellent.
Edna Carabantes: Yeah. The STAR Events are like, The most important part of the FCCLA organization because it’s the one thing that we all have in common and we can all like come together during like region, state, and national competitions. There’s about 37 competitions and that’s including the online competitions.
And we just got three new ones this year. So it’ll be fun seeing, seeing what else you can put in there, but definitely like, it’s so much fun preparing for it. Like you can get so much more involved with your chapter because everybody pitches in to help. Like for the Dolls of Hope we like pitched in to help and then for chapter project and review, we were able to help this girl called Abigail Kelly and we helped her with like what activities we’ve done in the past. Just reviewing our chapter in all one year. But this year I will be competing and saying yes to FCS because that is the future career that I would want to do.
Wendy Dau: Awesome.
Edna Carabantes: But definitely like STAR events are amazing.
I love it.
Wendy Dau: That’s great. What about you Rachel?
Rachel Rue: Just like, Edna and Dayton were saying like, STAR events are like such a amazing opportunity to learn so much about yourself. Doesn’t have to specifically be FCS related as well, although there’s like baking and pastrying, fashion design, interior design, and even more.
But last year I was able to do Public Policy Advocate, which isn’t really known to be FCS related. But in that time I was able to start a recycling initiative and was able to gather data and learn about how we recycle here in Provo and in the state of Utah as an entirety. And just in STAR Events, I feel like I’ve learned so many like public speaking skills, how to like organize myself, how to like, time manage and even presenting in front of like those three judges, like how to stay calm when you’re panicking on the inside. And I feel like, yeah, I’ve connected a lot with the people I’ve gone to like the region and state and nationals competitions with as well.
Wendy Dau: I’ve had to be a judge for FCCLA before.
I think it was a public speaking. The energy is incredible at the competition. So it’s pretty great. How do you feel like FCCLA has helped you grow just as a person, but also academically, how is this setting you up for some really great things beyond high school?
Dayton Ferris: I would say without a doubt, better just time management skills, more comfortable with being able to fail and just retry instead of just being like, I failed.
I can’t just can’t do it again. So I feel like I’ve learned just like. Just get up. You need to do it. Time management is just really important and just like being willing to sacrifice a lot of things that are less important and having priorities straight and making sure you have everything that’s important to you as your priorities, which is like academic stuff. Stuff along those lines.
Wendy Dau: Great
Edna Carabantes: Yeah, for me, it was definitely the value of your community. It showed me so much more that it showed me that I’m not alone. I was very shy back back in my freshman year, but… once I started joining FCCLA and their activities it showed me that like I always had a place where I can be. But it also showed me like public speaking skills or like being social was a very big one because now I’m kind of well known in the school. So it was really nice just like being able to like say hi to people in the halls and being able to give a presentation in class without being nervous.
Wendy Dau: Yes, that’s a big skill. Yeah, sure. Yeah. How about you, Rachel?
Rachel Rue: Uh, for me, I would definitely say, like, how I can always get better, like taking in criticism because you always have to, like, as you progress from region to state to nationals, you’re like, how can I do better? Or why did I lose points in that, like, specific portion.
So it made me really think about, Oh, what are the nitty gritty like details? Like what’s truly important and just focusing on like how I can just better myself and my project.
Wendy Dau: That becomes really important too. Cause it’s, it’s hard to take criticism sometimes, especially when you’ve worked really hard for something.
But taking that and then advancing to the next level so you can show how you keep improving on it is, that’s a pretty amazing skill and quality to have. What has FCCLA taught you about yourself? Who wants to go first?
Dayton Ferris: I feel like it taught me that I’m so much more stronger and I can do so much more than I think I’m able to do.
Instead of limiting myself, I’m able to just move past all these barriers that hop, like, that are in front of me. And, like, FCCLA has shown me a version of myself that’s, like, determined and, uh, non willing to give up, I guess.
Wendy Dau: That’s awesome.
Edna Carabantes: Yeah. For me, it, like, definitely, like, showed me how much leadership skills I have.
It also showed me the future career that I wanted. It showed me the path to family consumer science, and I want to be able to be a advisor for FCCLA, but also teaching, like, early childhood education.
Wendy Dau: Yes! You want to be a teacher? Oh my gosh, you made my whole day! Oh my goodness, there’s a spot reserved for you.
We got you. We got you.
Edna Carabantes: Yes, I, it, it taught me that I actually wanted to teach, like, No matter like what age it just I just wanted to be out in the education field.
Wendy Dau: I love that Oh that just made my heart so happy. I love it. What about you Rachel?
Rachel Rue: Uh FCCLA definitely taught me like to be confident in myself and to trust myself for sure.
I feel like, especially because I’m co presidents with Dayton, like having to lead all these, uh, all my officers and having the members also rely on me has taught me like, Oh, I am someone that’s like worthy of trust and that I can help support all these people along with in my STAR events, like having to like go up and present in front of everyone, show all the work that I put in and being proud of my work as well.
Wendy Dau: Good. That’s incredible. Is one of you a state officer? That’s you. I thought it was Edna. So tell us a little bit about what your responsibilities are as a state officer.
Edna Carabantes: Yes. So I am the VP of Alumni and Associates.
Wendy Dau: That’s awesome.
Edna Carabantes: So I have the chance to go to meetings with the people that used to be in FCCLA.
Wendy Dau: Okay.
Edna Carabantes: And we just share with each other about what we can do better for FCCLA as a state, and then I would take that into my chapter. We get to do a lot of planning meetings, so we get to plan the region, like, opening social, or like, the region state, like, competition, and the state competition. We look for guest speakers, and we look for what each region can bring to the state.
And that’s kind of like where, where we all pitch in. We were able to find this state’s theme. It was Wizard of Oz because the national theme is a Dare to Dream.
Wendy Dau: Oh, very cool. Yeah.
Edna Carabantes: And so we were able to come up with awards like the Ruby Slipper Award or the Follow the Yellow Brick Road. So that’s kind of where I pitch in.
Yeah. We, we do a lot around competitions and a lot of communication. But like the rest of the state.
Wendy Dau: Yes.
Edna Carabantes: Lots of meetings, but besides that, it’s so much fun. I get to meet people from different schools that I have never heard of.
Wendy Dau: Yes. And you’re like, there’s what?
Edna Carabantes: Yeah. It’s a very small, like very small schools down in St. George.
Wendy Dau: Yes.
Edna Carabantes: But it’s, it’s amazing being a state officer. Yeah. I get to learn a lot.
Wendy Dau: That’s great. Tell us a little bit about your teacher. It’s you all lit up when you were talking about Miss Bunn.
Edna Carabantes: Yes.
Wendy Dau: Okay. So tell us a little bit about how she really makes FCCLA and you’re probably your family and consumer science class is just awesome.
What does she teach specifically? She’s your advisor, but… what is it about her that’s so amazing? Cause I just, I want people to hear like how many awesome, like we have awesome students. Don’t get me wrong. We also have awesome teachers. I just want to celebrate them.
Edna Carabantes: Yes.
Dayton Ferris: Well, I would say our advisors, Ms. Bunn and Ms. Nicholson. I wouldn’t only say Ms. Bunn, Ms. Nicholson is also a really good teacher and just really out there. But both of them, like, put the back and bones in the FCCLA. They, they, they will sacrifice so much just so us as students could succeed in, like, FCCLA or in the class. Ms. Bunn, one of the hardest working people I’ve ever seen, just, like, constantly working and, like, She’s trying to make FCCLA the best, uh, organization that there is.
Ms. Nicholson always, always look at the brains of the group, just helping us just like find our path. But yeah, those two advisors are just amazing, just wonderful too. And I’m so happy they’re my advisors and they’re just helping all of us just like learn and then also helping us grow and experience FCCLA in just one of the most wonderful settings.
Rachel Rue: And for me, like I was saying, I was taking early childhood education and child development. She is the teacher for those classes. And she’s actually the one that got me to join FCCLA along with my friends. But she definitely has been such a dependable, like, adult. Or like someone I can like rely on in my life.
She always tries to help us out even though we’re club presidents and we try to like keep it student run. She always has that backbone support for us, helps create the presentations and make sure that everything is going smoothly. And she also definitely helps us a lot with fundraising and making sure that we all have like the money and the funds that we need to be able to do the activities or do the service projects and the competitions.
Wendy Dau: Yeah, that’s a lot of work for teachers to coordinate all of that, for sure. Yeah.
Edna Carabantes: Oh, Ms. Bunn and Ms. Nicholson, I love them. I’ve had them, I’ve got to experience their classes, uh, all four years. And it’s just, I don’t know, there’s something special about them. There’s like, it’s a really nice connection that I can have with them because I know that if I was, like, in a problem or like, if I just needed help with someone or an issue, I know I can go to them and like, I can ask them.
Ms. Bunn is amazing. She’s an amazing teacher. She’s so patient with everyone. Like, high schoolers are a lot to deal with.
Wendy Dau: Yeah, yeah, that’s okay.
Edna Carabantes: Miss Nicholson just teaches you a lot about like life skills, like cooking, like she taught me how to make chocolate chip cookies. That was fun.
Wendy Dau: That’s a good life skill.
Edna Carabantes: Yes.
Wendy Dau: You need those.
Edna Carabantes: And then, um, we also have one more advisor. Her name is Miss Hutchings.
Wendy Dau: Okay.
Edna Carabantes: And she’s the interior design teacher.
Wendy Dau: Oh, perfect.
Edna Carabantes: Yes. And I just, I love watching her work on like the dresses that she needs to make. And just, it’s, I love them. They’re my favorite teachers.
Wendy Dau: Just so talented, engaged with the students, and what you’re also pointing out is how important it is for kids to have an adult that you can trust and go to when you need that advice and that, and that help as you’re like figuring out your career and all of those pieces and just navigating high school.
Edna Carabantes: Yeah.
Wendy Dau: Yeah. That’s awesome. Is there anything else you would like to share with us? I know you want, you want people to join FCCLA. There’s a ton of energy. I can just feel it. It’s pretty great. Or any upcoming service projects you want us to be aware of?
Anything you’d like to share?
Rachel Rue: I’d definitely like to share that we’re having our Thanksgiving party next Friday. And we’re really excited for that because we’ll just have a lot of activities for all of everyone. We’ll have like a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving movie going on. We’ll have provided snacks.
It’ll be a great time for all the members to come together and like just participate. This Friday, uh, at N251 at Timpview. If you go to Timpview High School, you could, uh, come and just see and, uh, decide if you want to do a STAR Event or not, look into more, like, the exact STAR Events that there is, and then maybe even start on your STAR Event.
And, yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s what’s happening this Friday, and then Friday after that’s the Thanksgiving party.
Wendy Dau: Oh, very cool.
Edna Carabantes: Yes. They should join. It’s so much fun. You get to make, uh, friendships that you never thought that you would make. Like, I never thought that I would get close with these two amazing people and it’s so much fun.
We will start comp competitions in February. That’s our region competition. And our national competition is going to be in Orlando. So it’s going to be so much fun. You, they, they should totally join.
Wendy Dau: That’s great. So you have to qualify at the state competition to go to the national competition.
Edna Carabantes: Yes.
Wendy Dau: So you had better provide your A game if you want to go to Orlando, right?
Rachel Rue: Absolutely.
Edna Carabantes: For sure.
Dayton Ferris: The best game.
Wendy Dau: Best game. And that’s all you would ever provide, right? You’re always going to give your best.
Edna Carabantes: Always.
Wendy Dau: Yes. Well, thank you so much for being on the podcast and talking with us about FCCLA at Timpview High School. I hope more students do join. It sounds amazing. The energy is incredible.
And thanks to your incredible advisors and teachers. It’s been a pleasure.
Edna Carabantes: Thank you for having us.
Wendy Dau: Thank you for joining me for this week’s episode of What’s Up with the Sup’. As always, all episodes will be posted on the district website, YouTube, and anywhere you get your podcasts. If you have any topics or questions you would like us to discuss on the podcast, please email us at podcast@provo.edu.
Don’t forget to join us again next week when we are back with an all new episode of What’s Up with the Sup’. Have a great week, everyone.
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