Timpview FCCLA Creates Cars for Tiny Tim’s Toys

January 1st, 2024 /
Spencer Tuinei /
CTE, News, Public Relations, Schools, Secondary Schools, Timpview High

This is the first article of two covering FCCLA. Please visit our website on October 31st to read the second article.

FCCLA is working to serve those that need it, and students are in the driver’s seat.

For Timpview’s FCCLA group, students partnered with Tiny Tim’s Foundation for Kids to craft wooden toy cars for children across the world living in poverty.

For those unfamiliar, Family, Career and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA) is a Career and Technical Student Organization that functions as an integral part of the Family and Consumer Sciences education curriculum and operates within the school system. While advisors manage, direct, and counsel students, FCCLA students put the work into marketing, organizing, and holding service-based projects such as their Opening Social.

Macey Bunn, Timpview High School’s FCS Teacher, and FCCLA Advisor, shared details on the opening social, revealing the students’ work in making their service project happen.

“Jesi Walker, our FCCLA officer over service projects, contacted the foundation and set up a time for us to pick up the materials. We received a large box of around 70 wood cars that needed sanding and oiling.”

“Our FCCLA chapter donated sandpaper and provided the paintbrushes needed to complete the project. During the opening social, the officers covered the tables with paper, handed out toy cars, and placed paintbrushes and oil on each table. Each officer gave directions for sanding and oiling, ensuring that students properly sanded each car before oiling and drying the cars.”

When rubber took to the road, FCCLA officers delivered; they hoped for a forty-student turnout but saw more than fifty show out for the project. Each student painstakingly sanded the insides and outsides of each car, lathered a beeswax-mineral oil by hand brush to each car exterior, and laid each car out to dry. With their combined help, the FCCLA group completed more than seventy cars in an hour.

They then delivered the toy cars to the foundation; foundation members then painted and added wheels to their toys.

Their Opening Social was integral, serving as a valuable lesson of self-empowerment.

“I was so excited to see how many people were ready and willing to help us serve the community and have fun doing it! I love watching what FCCLA can do,” said Halli Johnson, FCCLA President.

“It turned out so much better than we hoped,” continued Sebastian Martinez, FCCLA Vice President.

“We had the advantage of doing it on Club Week, which allowed us to spread the word further than we could’ve gone on flyers and Instagram posts alone. The room was so packed that we had to haul in more tables! Everyone was having a good time, paying attention, and everything that could’ve gone right went right.”

The Timpview FCCLA chapter got a lot of mileage out of their Opening Social. Students united in organizing an event and put themselves to work sanding, oiling, and drying cars in shared service. Most importantly, students walked away self-actualized, realizing their capabilities to create significant communal change for good.

They carried their newfound determination towards their next project, which we’ll cover in an upcoming article. Visit our website on October 31st to learn more about their Quilts for Refugees and Days for Girls project.