"People won't change the way they talk about us
until we change the way we talk about us." - Dr. Joe Sanfelippo

Longfellow received a garden grant from the city, and with help from Century senior Annika B and her non-profit, Midwestern Rewilding, students helped choose and plant native species. While done during school hours, this project has great potential for future family engagement. Annika was an incredible partner throughout the process!

Submitted by Kerri N.

Students from John Marshall and Century High Schools attended the 2025 Minnesota Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America (MN FCCLA) State Conference, a three-day conference in Bloomington, Minnesota that brought together more than 625 attendees and 100 volunteers from 41 schools across the state. Several Rochester Public School students won awards for their projects, earning them passage to the National FCCLA conference in Orlando this July. In total, students competed in 105 different events.

John Marshall award winners include:

• Outgoing State Officer Will Tran (12th grade), honored with the Chapter Spark Award for increasing membership from 12 members to over 30 paid and 50 total members in one year.

• Arsieme Feliche (10th grade) won the Outstanding New Member Award.

• Kongberi Nsamelah (11th grade ) was elected Vice President of Community Service for MN FCCLA for the upcoming school year.

• Manal Mahamoud (11th grade) won Top Gold and National Qualifier in Hospitality and Tourism.

• Waithira Mbuthia (10th grade) and Ruby Troung (10th grade ) won top gold and qualified for Nationals in Chapter Service Project Portfolio for their work helping North Carolina FCCLA Chapters by holding a Hurricane Helene Supply Drive in conjunction with Crenlo Manufacturing, Cub Foods, Destiny Church, and Century FCCLA, among other community partners statewide.

• Waithira Mbuthia also won top gold and was a National Qualifier in Professional Presentation, where she presented on the risks of screen time and social media usage.

• Ruby Troung won top gold and qualified for Nationals in Career Investigation.

• Jomanh Sharif (9th grade) won Top Gold and qualified for Nationals in Leadership.

• Arsieme Feliche (10th grade) also won Top Gold in two categories and qualified for Nationals in both. She competed in Focus On Children and did a project on teaching about friendship. She also competed in a Professional Presentation in Spotlight on Kids where she did a project about seatbelt use and car seat safety.

• Kya Lee (10th grade) won a silver medal for her Professional Presentation on using crochet as a method to handle anxiety.

In addition, Waithira Mbuthia won the FCCLA/Kikkoman Scholarship to spend this summer in Japan, where she will be living with a host family for 6 weeks.

Century award winners include:

• Christine Atuti (11th grade) and Zeena Suliman (11th grade) won Silver Awards with their Public Policy Advocacy Project on Period Poverty. This project ensured that our high school followed the state law that schools should supply a certain amount of menstrual products.

• Justly Heng (12th grade), Liberty Strenke (11th grade), and Gabbi Morse (12th grade) won Silver Awards with their Professional Presentation on an idea to expand the Teens Offering Peer Support (TOPS) program already running by adding a phone application that offers anonymous peer support for homework and mental health. They are looking for developers to make it happen.

FCCLA National Leadership Conference is the largest gathering of Family and Consumer Science professionals and students across America. Last year, more than 8,000 students from around the country attended.