The Family, Career and Community Leaders of America, a new pilot extracurricular offered by MCHS, runs the risk of not fully establishing, due to lack of student interest. The club, better known as FCCLA, had its first meeting in September, but only one person showed.

West Campus has been introducing a dozen new pilot clubs over the last two years including FCCLA to try and encourage students to be more active within the school. To become an official club at MCHS, the organization must meet certain criteria that will be discussed by a committee of teachers at the beginning of summer.

Culinary Arts teacher Jessica Grens is the advisor as well as Culinary Arts and Child Care teacher, Melissa Ferris, who teaches at East.

Grens explains, “What I’ve been telling students is that it’s an organization where they’re coming up with some sort of service component, and then they’re also competing at regional and state competitions.”

Grens was also the advisor for FCCLA when she taught at Niles West High School. She briefly mentioned that while being the advisor at her previous school, that one of the many different competitions was a salad competition.

“They all had to practice their knife cuts and had to find their own recipe,” she said, “and they had to compete with several other schools.”

FCCLA doesn’t just cook, they do other things such as talk about education, childcare, and more.

“Another component is not just culinary but also if students are interested in educational pathways, preschool, fashions there are also competitions for that as well,” Grens said.

Olivia Klein is a West Campus freshman and happens to be the only student who went to the first meeting. Klein stated, “[I joined] to make new friends. Culinary I is also my favorite class.”

The club meets every Tuesday starting October 15 at 7 am. It originally was after school but, due to only one student going to the meeting, it was switched to mornings in hopes that it wouldn’t interfere with student’s athletics or after school jobs. The requirements for the club is that you’re enrolled in or have already taken any culinary, independent living, and childcare class that West has to offer.