Kodiak student joins youth leadership group as vice president of development

Kayla Desroches/KMXT

A national leadership group for youth just elected a Kodiak local as vice president of development.

The nonprofit, Family, Career and Community Leaders of America, or FCCLA, gives its members the chance to start projects locally and then compete nationally and statewide to demonstrate their accomplishments.

Projects could fall into a number of categories, including entrepreneurship and education. According to the FCCLA website, it has over 160,000 members nationwide.

The group’s new vice president of development is Kodiak High School senior Rafael Bitanga, who says he’s been involved in the group since his freshman year. He explains Kodiak’s chapter is active in catering and the culinary arts, which is also a particular interest of his.

Bitanga says, as vice-president of development, he hopes to boost Kodiak’s profile within FCCLA.

“We used to have a super strong family and consumer sciences education here in Alaska, but ever since it has gone down. So, what I’m really hoping is to bring it back up this year. We’re pretty far away from the other states who have FCCLA and, as a national executive board, we can show them that we’ve got everything it takes to actually participate in the national level.”

According to an FCCLA press release, Bitanga was elected at the 2018 National Leadership Conference between June 28 and July 02 in Atlanta, Georgia. Part of his duties will include setting policies for the organization and planning next year’s conference.

Edit 7/11: A former version of this article mistakenly reported that Bitanga was made vice president. He was elected as vice president of development.