This summer, four students from Tioga FCCLA will proudly represent the community by competing at the 2026 National Leadership Conference in Washington, D.C. After paving their way through Regional and State competitions, Gabby Cuellar, Lacie Gray, Emily Ballinger and Jimmy Hendricks will be taking on the nation’s capital city at the conference from July 6-10. There they will connect with and compete against thousands of FCCLA members across the United States.
The mission of FCCLA (Family, Career and Community Leaders of America) is to promote personal growth in leadership development through family and consumer science education in preparation for adult life. FCCLA helps kids develop different important life and employability skills in a safe environment, such as leadership, critical thinking, communication and more. It has a strong focus on family and helping others while encouraging students to serve their community, build healthy relationships and connect with others.
Since Christi Crowe began advising the Tioga FCCLA chapter 12 years ago, it has grown immensely to 80+ members. This means that the chapter’s impact on the community is greater than ever before. Crowe is passionate about FCCLA and has always said that it is “one big family.” She enjoys teaching and advising FCCLA because she is able to help students learn relevant, practical skills and make real world connections that they can apply to their everyday lives while impacting the community.
With expenses such as airfare, hotels and registration, the chapter has been busy raising money for their trip to the National conference. The chapter is grateful for the community’s amazing support so far with their fundraisers. According to Crowe, this year’s third annual BBQ dinner night has been their biggest and best one yet with the addition of the Northshore Fire Department attending with a fire truck on display.
To make it to Nationals, students have to compete at Regionals and qualify for State. If they are awarded as one of the top finalists in their event at State, they qualify to compete at Nationals. Cuellar will be presenting her “Promote and Publicize” project to a panel of judges, as she demonstrates her efforts in promoting the chapter to the community. With her project, she was able to get over a thousand views on social media. Cuellar is excited to see people and projects from other states, trading FCCLA pins with competitors and see the uniqueness of the diverse projects from across the country.
Ballinger and Gray will be competing in “National Programs in Action.” For their project, they hosted an event called “Women in STEM Career Day” for Tioga students in 2nd through 8th grade. During this event, students were able to engage in hands-on educational learning with local women in STEM, such as Leanna Mack, Danielle Litner and Amber Nowalski. The girls were able to discuss the event when they were featured on the KTEN News.
“FCCLA brings your community together and you get to make cool things that help other people,” Ballinger said.
Hendricks created a video tutorial to help demonstrate camera and photography skills for those in need of assistance for his “Instructional Video Design” project. Hendricks needed to be in the top 20 in the nation to advance to the National conference for his specific event. He feels great about making it to Nationals, especially considering he had to redo his entire project in two days during a snowstorm because of file corruption.
At the conference, Crowe wants her students to make friends and connections with students from all over and see the impact FCCLA has across the nation.
“Winning is great,” she said, “but that’s not what it’s all about.”
She wants to see her students build their confidence, bond and grow together as they experience the “family” aspect on a bigger scale.
Crowe’s goals for the future of the chapter are to give more kids the opportunity to grow as individuals and as part of the family while actively learning what FCCLA is all about and the impact it can make. She would love to see the chapter continue to advance to Nationals, as well.
