FBLA Takes the “Opportunity” to Help Their Community

The Future Business Leaders of America are reaching out to their community this year with their service project working with Opportunity House in Reading.

Gabriel Siegfried, grade 10, and Hannah Nied, grade 12,  are leading the efforts to support the community this year and they will be competing their project against other teams in the region, state, and possibly nation.

Opportunity House is a homeless shelter in Reading. The house has served the community since 1984. 

According to the official Opportunity House website, “The shelter is now a 24 hour multi-service facility that improves the quality of life for men, women and children who are in need.”

The entire Fleetwood Area High School FBLA chapter gets involved in service to the community. This year’s project has taken members to the House to serve food, held a mug drive for residents, and helped plan and hold the Souper Bowl on Monday, January 30th.

Impact is the main goal of service projects for FBLA members. It is important to Siegfried and Nied to have a project that benefits the organization so they can have a successful project with which to compete.

“This year, our chapter definitely was able to see the impact we had when we served food to the shelter residents,” high school business teacher and advisor of FBLA Mrs. Kelly Ackerman said.

Community service projects took a hit during COVID years. 

“The project this year has the potential to be good, as the effectiveness has already been seen by both our chapter and the Opportunity House.  We are, however, still in rebuilding years from COVID, so it is difficult to compare this project to those before.” Ackerman said.

“We chose this because it was something different, and we could really help make a positive impact in our community,” project organizer senior Hannah Nied said.