The Hot Springs Junior Academy's Family, Career and Community Leaders of America team placed silver in nationals and fifth in the nation recently during a Students Taking Action with Recognition event.
Joshua Eddinger-Lucero, HSJA FCCLA adviser, said there are over two dozen categories of STAR events that students can compete in.
"The way that FCCLA STAR events are structured, they develop their project and compete at the district level, which would be against other schools in the state of Arkansas in our FCCLA district. And then once they compete at district, they're evaluated by three evaluators, given a set of scores, and then the top two in each category advance to the state level competition at the state competition," he said.
The team competed in the category of Sustainability Challenge level one, which recognizes participants who address environmental issues that adversely impact human health and well-being and who actively empower others to get involved, according to the FCCLA website.
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"As a member of FCCLA, more students at Hot Springs chose the Sustainability Challenge category. They had to pick one of five predetermined environmental topics, and then they developed a project that related to their schooling community around that environmental concern," Eddinger-Lucero said.
Anne-Elise Brammer, an HSJA FCCLA member, said the environmental concern topic the team chose was food waste. The team researched food waste around the district, how to prevent it, how much money goes into food waste and how much has been wasted.
"I feel we could relate more to food waste because this is something (that's) not really new. I feel like people actually know about food waste," Elvira Yanes, an HSJA FCCLA member, said.
"When we researched more about food waste and about environmental concerns, just in Arkansas, it said that food waste was one of the most dangerous ones. It was very high populated. ... There's a lot of food waste that goes around not only in Hot Springs but in Arkansas. So, we thought with our school, we can relate to that with school and those around us," Brammer said.
She said it feels "cool" that they placed in their category because it was the first year being on FCCLA for her, Yanes and Hayden Cullins, another HSJA FCCLA member.
"It feels nice because this is actually my first organization I've ever been in, and I never really excepted myself to really get a silver medal," Yanes said.
"I was kind of surprised for the first year that I actually tried something new from out of my regular stuff that I do, but it was kind of surprising that we actually won a medal for this," Cullins said.
At first, it was only going to be Brammer and Yanes in the organization, but Cullins decided to join.
"Honestly, if (Cullins) didn't come with us, I don't think we would have made it as far because we all added in our own elements and our own thoughts, and it became easier because we were all able to pick up more work and do more of our own part," Brammer said.
"Last year was also my first year teaching. So this was my first year as a Family and Consumer Sciences teacher and an FCCLA adviser, and as an adviser, seeing how much the three of them have grown being members of FCCLA and seeing how much that they've grown and developed in their own skills and abilities participating in STAR events this past year has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my first year of teaching, and I'm just beyond proud and excited for them and to see what they'll continue to do as members of FCCLA," Eddinger-Lucero said.
"As a first-year adviser, even though I was a member of FCCLA and I have a lot of experience with FCCLA, I could never have imagined in this first year that I would have three students qualify for national STAR events, let alone to have received silver medals and placed fifth in the nation. So, I almost can't contain the level of excitement that I have for what they have accomplished this year," she said.