All members of Poca High School's Future Business Leaders of America have been very busy supporting its local community over the past few months.
During the month of October, the students collected candy and toys to make Halloween gift bags for the hospitalized children of Women and Children's Hospital in Charleston. The students stayed after school to bag the gifts and candy for the children and even created a few sugar free gift bags for diabetic children. They delivered the gift bags on the Friday before Halloween. The children were very grateful and excited to see the students.
During the month of November, the students began sending letters to seven local elementary schools requesting families in need of assistance for the Christmas holiday. Principals provided the FBLA members a list of students and families in need of assistance. The students went to work on securing some donations and assistance from the Poca High School staff and students to aid them in their endeavor. They invited the student council to assist because the task was very large for one organization. They had a school wide food drive to create baskets for the families.
A rock band concert was provided for all students; those who helped with the food collection were given VIP seats for the concert. The food baskets provided 55 families with essentials for preparing meals for its members. The baskets provided a 12- lb. turkey, 10-lb. bag of potatoes, various canned goods, fruit, drinks, and dry goods.
The FBLA members and the students of Poca High School each adopted an angel from the angel tree to purchase gifts for the children. FBLA members volunteered lunch time to sign out angels and to collect and organize returned gifts. The members stayed after school three to four hours wrapping the collected toys and clothing for a week. At the end of the project, the students provided 67 children with toys and clothing for the Christmas holiday. They wrapped over 527 gift boxes and delivered them to their perspective schools for the parents to collect. The angel tree children were from seven of the county's 14 elementary schools. Poca High School's FBLA would like to assist all of its county's schools; however, the school has approximately 650 students, so it is a very difficult task.
FBLA would like to thank Poca Food Fair for ordering the turkeys and potatoes at cost for our families and a special thanks to Trinity Coal for donating $500 to cover the cost of the turkeys for each family basket. Without their help, FBLA would have had a very difficult time filling the baskets. Each business has been a participant of our efforts for several years. Thank you for helping families in your community.
FBLA is now preparing to compete at the state FBLA business competitions in Charleston. We hope to do well so that we are eligible to compete nationally this summer in Tennessee. Students are also planning two additional community service projects. They hope to provide Easter baskets for the children at Women and Children's Hospital this spring and look forward to participating in the March of Dimes Walk America. FBLA is still collecting recycled paper each week from its computer labs in the school and it is transported to the recycling center by Poca teacher Mr. Doug Smith. We would like to encourage all readers to recycle and help our planet survive.