Membership in FCCLA allows students to be immersed in their school and community, meet new people, make an impact, and grow their leadership potential! Through FCCLA's unlimited opportunities, there are so many ways to get involved and there is a spot for everyone in FCCLA.
Black River FCCLA meets every Wednesday until 3:30 in the high school cafeteria, for more information about upcoming events, see the "Activities" subpage!
How to join Black River FCCLA:
Joining FCCLA is very simple! If you know someone who is already a member of FCCLA, join them at a meeting, see Mrs. Demczyk, or see one of the members of the officer team. From there, we will get you set up with the resources you need to affiliate. You must fill out the Google Form, join our Google Classroom and Remind, and select FCCLA in Final Forms. Once you have completed all of these items and have paid your $17 FCCLA dues, you are officially a member of Black River FCCLA. It is never too late to join, we would love to have you as a member in Black River FCCLA!
Google Classroom code: y6pvveb
Remind code: @Mrsdemcz
Benefits of being a member:
FCCLA gives members the opportunity to lead, grow, and succeed!
In FCCLA you can:
- Gain career ready skills
- Develop your leadership skills
- Get involved in your school and community
- Stay conneCTEd and make lifelong relationships
- Travel across the state and nation
- Take part in competitive events
- Make unforgettable memories
Hear From FCCLA Members and Alumni Themselves:
"Being in FCCLA has taught me so much about public speaking, networking, leadership, and what I want to do in my future."
- Emma Bright, 2025-2026 Chapter President
"FCCLA provided a foundation for my leadership development. The qualities I apply in my professional life today were cultivated through my experiences with my chapter."
- Olivia Schlauch, Member 2018-2022
Membership Recruitment:
Open House Recruitment
Every year, our school district hosts an Open House event the day prior to the start of the new school year! This year, they incorporated various school organizations by providing space to promote and share information about your club. For this event, we were excited to share about FCCLA, talking to students and parents about the benefits of membership and ways that they can get involved. Two of our officers made a board displaying many of our events from the past year! Additionally, we had stations promoting FCCLA's National Program, FACTS, as a part of our Ohio FACTS Back to School Safety Initiative. It was great for us to join other organizations like Student Council and FFA, who we share many of the same values with and work with side by side to develop the leaders at Black River. Overall, this allowed us to share about FCCLA to our school and community and get students excited for what FCCLA has to offer.
Bring a Friend Meeting
One of our favorite recurring traditions as a chapter is our Bring a Friend Meeting. This meeting is organized by our Vice President of Membership and has been an instrumental event to recruit new members. Current members are encouraged to bring a friend to a meeting who is not in FCCLA and they feel would benefit from being a member. At this meeting, we shared about FCCLA and then the officer team led the group in fun, leadership activities. After this meeting, we often see a growth in membership; pictured above are members, Grace and Elise. Elise, an established member, brought Grace to the Bring a Friend Meeting. Since then, Grace has been an active member, attending weekly meetings and taking part in many of our community service projects. Meetings and recruitment efforts like these display the core values of FCCLA: we are a community and a family that works together to make a difference.
FCCLA Week Activities
We love FCCLA and we love to show how much we do! FCCLA Week is a great way to share the impact of FCCLA and celebrate our members. During this exciting week, as a chapter, we plan a school-wide spirit week and plan fun activities for our members to take part in. To tie in one of FCCLA's core values, community service, we have hosted safe-driving stations during FCS classes and we have also made tie blankets to donate to those in need. At our weekly meeting, we plan fun games for our members to take part in. To end the week off, we buy delicious donuts for all of our members, in appreciation of all of their efforts. In all, FCCLA Week is a great time to promote our great organization, celebrate our members, and give back to our school and community. All of these activities increase our awareness, get students excited for our chapter events, and after FCCLA week, we often see our weekly meeting attendance rise!
Incentive Trips
One of the best parts about FCCLA is that there is a positive balance between business and fun! To encourage members to stay active and to often entice students into joining, we plan two incentive trips for the school year. The two that we continually take part in is the FCCLA Day with the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Scene 75 trip with Keystone FCCLA. Both of these trips keep current members active as they must meet the set requirements and these trips also often encourage new members to join. If they are not already a member, hearing that their friends got to go to the Cavs game or got to have a fun day at Scene 75 often gets them excited about joining FCCLA. Nonetheless, while these are fun trips, they still incorporate the core values of FCCLA by having leadership activities planned and community service as a requirement to attend. In all, Incentive Trips allow us to increase our membership while creating amazing memories along the way!
Membership Retention and Recognition:
Every month, the Black River FCCLA Officer Team picks an individual who displayed dedication to our chapter and went above and beyond to help our chapter grow. Members chosen often volunteer to help clean up after meetings or display profound leadership characteristics. Members who are chosen for Member of the Month are featured at our meetings, in our monthly newsletter, and outside of our FCS classroom!
The 2025-2026 Members of the Month are:
September - Melyne Veron Gomes
October - Kaitlyn Bartish
November - Josh Adkins
December - Bob Dieter
Every fall, the Black River FCCLA Officer Team organizes a Fall Harvest Party and Installation Ceremony to recognize all of our affiliated members! This year, we recognized all of our members by celebrating them and their years in FCCLA! By using the official FCCLA opening and closing ceremony, members were officially installed into the Black River FCCLA chapter! If we were to have any Junior Officers elected in the fall, they would be installed as well. This is a great formal event at the start of our year that allows us to show our appreciation for all of our affiliated members. Afterwards, we enjoyed a potluck style meal where members enjoyed delicious food and fellowship with those around them!
To celebrate our chapter during the school year, we host an End of Year Banquet to recognize our members and their accomplishments, along with reflecting on our chapter activities from the past year! Our officer team cooks and serves a meal for our members and their families and then leads the event. During the banquet, we recognize all of our members and we also celebrate our above and beyond members through special awards like the "Selfless Service" and "Honorary Member" awards. Additionally, we recognize our STAR Event participants and our Power of One award recipients. Lastly, we end this event with a commemorative slideshow, highlighting all of our events from the year!
Every month, we take time to recognize our members who are celebrating an upcoming birthday. Based on our affiliation form, we organize our member's birthdays by month and in the first week of every month, our President hand writes them a birthday card that is signed by the officer team. We then pack the cards with candy and the members are recognized at our next meeting. Not only this, their birthday is displayed on a chart in our FCS classroom along with our sticker chart that organizes our attendance. Overall, this activity allows our chapter to celebrate every member during their special month. Just as a family does, we acknowledge every member and we show our appreciation for them, making their moments even more memorable!