HOSA made it to state in 2023
Participant and club president Jezreel Grace Gaad said, “I feel like all my hard work, all the late nights, all the fundraisers made it worth it.”
Photos by HOSA club President Jezreel Grace Gaad
Health Occupations Students of America (HOSA) club in its second year hopes to build on last year’s success in the State Leadership Conference. HOSA is a global student-led organization recognized by the US Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services. Furthermore, it’s been funded as a new club at our school. HOSA had only been running for a few months at David Douglas before marking a huge achievement. A competitive event group from David Douglas had gone to win 1st place at the State Leadership Conference (SLC) in 2022-2023. SLC is a state-level competitive event where HOSA competes against other schools in Oregon. They compete against schools such as Benson, Westview, Jesuit, etc. There are a variety of different medical/healthcare-related subjects that students can participate in at this conference. Many include those such as pharmacology, pathophysiology, medical math, medical law and ethics, and much more. Each competitive event has a separate set of material requirements needed to refer to and study for.
SLC for the 2022-2023 school year was held at the Holiday Inn Portland - Columbia Riverfront on March 16, 17, and 18, 2023. These were all-day events using the money HOSA raised from different fundraisers throughout the year. The HOSA board members put a lot of effort into raising money for the SLC trip through various fundraisers and organizations like Communicare and Dad's Club. With more members this year, they anticipate being able to achieve much more.
Participants Jezreel Grace Gaad, Ailing Zhen, Kiara Gonzalez, and Alketa Veseli, went on to participate in a PSA video event which not only earned them a place in the top 3 at the state level but placed them first. They were able to achieve state rankings as a result, and this guaranteed them a spot at the international leadership conference in Dallas, Texas.
Participant and club president Jezreel Grace Gaad said, “I feel like all my hard work, all the late nights, all the fundraisers made it worth it.”
It was definitely not easy for David Douglas to reopen the HOSA chapter. Given that this club just started a year ago, Gaad intends to offer additional opportunities through it. Providing her peers with more opportunities was one of her primary motivations for founding the club.
“I’m happy we grew from a small number to at least 68. We grew our club to provide more opportunities. We didn’t want our club members’ financial status to be a barrier to their success in the group so fundraising is still a big concern,” said Gaad.
In order to raise money for the SLC in the upcoming year, they intend to focus more on fundraising and other varied endeavors. It's still a major concern, and one of their main objectives for the upcoming year is to raise enough money to spend the night at SLC 2024.