This article was published on BillingsGazette.com on December 17, 2016 by Mike Ferguson
Bridger High School’s Family, Career and Community Leaders of America program learned a valuable lesson this week: It can pay to complete your assignments on time.
According to Vicki Kaufman, who teaches family and consumer science at the school where she’s also the FCCLA adviser, students dutifully turned in their project for the Lead2Feed leadership program before the Dec. 9 deadline. Lead2Feed offers curriculum on project management and teamwork, among other topics. At www.lead2feed.org, the organization helps students complete a service project to meet a community need by partnering with a public nonprofit organization.
This week, Kaufman and her students learned that their entry had been randomly selected from those received by the deadline from all over the country.
The resulting $5,000 technology grant will mean that three MacBook Pro laptop computers and an additional $250 worth of technology will be sent to the school in mid-January.
Schools from Grant, Ala., Louisville, Ky., Belmont, Mass., and Spring Lake Park, Minn., were also selected.
“We have a lot of projects to get ready, and those computers will make the students’ presentations a lot more professional,” Kaufman said. “We were tickled when we heard about it Monday. It always pays to get your assignments done and then it’s off your back.”
Kaufman called Lead2Feed’s leadership training “invaluable. It breaks the process into easy to understand and apply steps. The team members are so empowered by the knowledge gained from this program. They will be our leaders in the future.”
According to a news release from the Lead2Feed student leadership program, Bridger students in grades 7-12 participated in the Bringing Unity to our Community Day by working with nine area charities.
If the Bridger students’ entry is selected among the nation’s best, it’ll mean a $10,000 technology grant, Kaufman said.