Centura FBLA’s 2021-2022 President, Faith McDonald, qualified for National FBLA by earning 1^st place at Nebraska FBLA’s Spring Conference in the Public Speaking Event. McDonald competed at National FBLA via Zoom twice during the month of June. On July 2^nd, she took the virtual stage at Nationals, earning 2^nd place for her speech that she wrote on the FBLA Goal, “Strengthen the confidence of students in themselves and their work”. “Faith wanted to do her very best on this speech, which involved many early mornings working in my room before school even started. I’m really glad she did not go with the ‘Superhero Theme’ that I suggested!” stated Stacie Loeffelholz, Centura’s FBLA Advisor.

In her speech, McDonald told the story of how last summer, she spontaneously volunteered to take over the Backpack Program from her Aunt Marcia, making it an FBLA Project. She ordered, organized, and delivered food each week for 50-55 Centura students. She quickly realized she couldn’t do this on her own, and after asking for assistance, several students jumped in to help the program succeed. They did this by bringing food to school for the annual food drive, building shelves, stocking shelves, and organizing and delivering food. McDonald also networked with the United Way, Food Bank for the Heartland, and Project Hunger in order to receive goods to stock the food pantry. Faith stated that she lives by the quote, “She believed she could, so she did!” Faith will be a senior this year at Centura High School. She is the daughter of Amy and Brent McDonald.