By Sarah Opdahl

New Fairfield High School’s (NFHS) DECA Club is continuing to up their game with state-level competition that will now lead to DECA’s National at the International Career Development Conference (ICDC)  in Atlanta, Georgia, April 25-29. Though the club has had a strong presence in the school since the 1980s, especially in the form of the school store and merchandise sales, they have entered a new era of activity with the addition of competitions, bigger events, increased philanthropic efforts, and more.

Business teacher and club advisor Danielle McDermott is thrilled to help future leaders and entrepreneurs to raise the bar. “Each year we try to add onto the year before with what we do within DECA.  This year we continued with our food drive, giving tree, homecoming festivities, and campaigns, but we also added in the competitive side of DECA.” She added, “With the events the students chose, two being prepared written events and projects, this brought us the 4k for 4 yrs walk we did in honor of the Nicole Vengalli Foundation and the Powder Puff Game which honors Scholarship 42 and Thomas Ford.  These were both new additions this year.” McDermott has seen the students engage at a deeper level in so many ways, saying they “had approached me early last school year and wanted to brainstorm group projects they could do. They wanted to honor organizations close to home, and we spent time discussing those ideas and what would work.”

At the state-level competition, competitors included eleventh graders Gabriella Alit, Emily Arizzi, Mia Fiscella,Julia Matera, Lilybella Reilly and Kaelyn Schuchat,who all hold leadership positions in the NFHS DECA chapter. Emily Arizzi competed in the Individual Role Play, which is part of the Marketing category, in the Apparel and Accessories Merchandising event, for which she needed to place in December to be able to participate in the State-level competition. She completed a 100 question multiple choice test in early February and then at States last week she was given a scenario, 10 minutes to prepare her response, and then a 10-minute role play with a judge on that scenario. Impressively, Emily placed 1st in her category and this qualifies her to attend ICDC. “Emily was a student in my marketing class this fall and someone I have known for a while through other programs and she approached me and really wanted to try competing.  She loved the idea and the challenge and wanted to give it a go.”

Gabby Alit and Kaelyn Schuchat competed in the Community Awareness Project, in which they bring awareness to a community topic through an event of their choosing.  Mia Fiscella, Julia Matera, and Lilybella Reilly competed in the Community Giving Project in which they used an event to give back to a program of their choosing. “They chose to honor the memory of Nicole Vengalli and host the 4k for 4 yrs walk near the anniversary of her passing and raise funds for the foundation in her name,” McDermott explained. “There are many different options on the competitive side,” she said. At NFHS “this year DECA has 93 members…a strong membership.  It is my hope that we can have more students opt to compete in future years.” Often the students who choose to take part in DECA are bound for careers in marketing, finance, hospitality, and management, but there are no bounds to participation.

McDermott explained that Nationals competitors will continue to take practice tests and study content as well as continue to practice role plays. “Emily will need to test again at the National level and participate in two role plays at Nationals.”  Two additional students, who will represent the school’s Thrive program accomplishment, a subset of their work in DECA, will be ready to take notes, learn, network, and brainstorm ideas for next year’s DECA chapter at NFHS.

DECA meets a couple of times a month after school to discuss and plan upcoming events and members divide up tasks related to promotion, organization, or implementation. McDermott expressed that she is exceedingly proud of their accomplishments. In particular, she gave a shoutout to the States competitors who “all stepped up as 10th graders to demonstrate their leadership.  All six of them were then named officers this year as 11th graders, Gabby being the President, Kaelyn is VP of Marketing, Emily is our social media manager, Mia is one of our VPs of Events and Programming, and Julia and Lilybella are VPs of Community Service.  They have been a constant in the program from very early on and are so encouraging and willing to work to do great things for our school, our program, and even more, our town.” She went on to say, “I’d like my small group to know that I see their hard work, know the time and energy they put into that work and appreciate all they have given to the program.  They are my first group of competitors since I took over DECA in their freshmen year and I couldn’t be more proud of all they have accomplished.”

Fundraising will now begin to help offset the cost of attendance at Nationals. McDermott says they “will likely be putting together some raffles and hopefully getting donations and sponsorships.  We would love to put together some raffle baskets, especially a gift card raffle tree.  If anyone is willing to donate a gift card or an item that can help us form some baskets, that would be incredibly helpful.  Any donation helps as the costs of the trip involve a registration fee for all students and chaperones that attend, flights, hotel stay for four nights, meals, and special events that DECA hosts while students are there for the time.” If anyone is interested in donating, please reach out to Danielle at mcdermott.danielle@newfairfieldschools.org.