Niles West’s FCCLA team is attending the annual state competition from Thursday, April 18 to Saturday, April 20 in Springfield, Illinois.

FCCLA (Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America) is a national organization that involves competition between students who are in the Family and Consumer Science classes. Niles West students from the cooking, child development, and fashion classes are competing this weekend. Child Development students are doing story-telling projects along with a child-care provider. Culinary students are presenting their skills in salads, cake decorating, and cookie decorating, and the fashion students are creating their own formal and casual dresses.

“[This organization] allows students leadership opportunities and competitions for students interested in the area of Family and Consumer Sciences,” FCCLA adviser Michelle Kline said.

Junior Kayla Camburn is competing in Child Development. Along with her partner,junior  Priscilla Nkoloma, Camburn is going to present their Children’s Literature Presentation to the judges.

“We created a story board for the story The Very Busy Spider and we recite the the story to the judges while using props on our board,” Camburn said.

According to Kline, the only way to advance to nationals is by competing in the STAR Event, and only one student from West is competing in the STAR Culinary Arts Event. The other events are only state.

In order to prepare for the state competition, the students have been working on their projects during school, as well as outside of school. Since the events are co-curricular, they are learned in class as well.