More GOLD for the Minneota gals
Eureka! The Minneota FCCLA girls strike gold again in the hills of Tennessee.
The team of Tara Thooft and Natalie Bot earned gold medals at the Family, Career and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA) STAR Award National Conference on July 3-8 in Nashville, TN. Over 4,200 STAR Event participants from across the country competed in the national conference.
Students from Minneota have brought home gold medals at the FCCLA nationals for several years in a row. Another Minneota duo, Addie Konold and Katie Konold, received silver medals. Family and Consumer Sciences instructor LeaAnne Bot is the Minneota FCCLA adviser.
Students can compete in over 30 STAR (Students Taking Action with Recognition) events. Eight Minneota students qualified for nationals through the state conference held March 23-25 in Bloomington. Four did not make the trip to nationals.
Natalie Bot and Tara Thooft, both sophomores-to-be and competing in their second straight national conference, teamed up in the Entrepreneurship category. For their project, the duo developed a business plan for starting a home-based cupcake business that they dubbed “Mad Batter Cupcake Shop”.
The duo researched and learned through the Department of Agriculture that the new Minnesota Cottage Food Law allows licensing for the operation of a home-based food business. They also included in their project what they learned about running a business and how to calculate the inventory expenses and costs of the products they make.
Addie Konold, who graduated this spring, and her sophomore-to-be sister Katie Konold, competed in the Sports Nutrition category at the national conference.
The siblings were required to assume the role of a sports nutritionist and develop a plan to get peak performance from a student athlete.
The plan they came up contained goals for the nutrition and hydration for the athlete's training regimen and competition days, as well as non-training days. They planned and developed individualized meals while using management tools to complete a nutritional analysis of each meal.
The girls held several fundraisers throughout the year to alleviate costs for the national trip. They were also able to take in many sights to and from the national conference, including the Gateway Arch in St. Louis and the Grande Ole Opry in Nashville.