What are Chapter Projects?
Chapter projects are year-long events where FBLA members can gain practical business skills and knowledge in a more hands-on way than regular competitive events. For chapter projects, Lynbrook FBLA will partner up with an organization/business and help them with something they need. Through this process, participants get exposed to how real businesses and organizations run. There are multiple ways to get involved with chapter projects, such as being an officer or just being an active participant. There are three chapter projects Lynbrook FBLA competes in: American Enterprise Project, Community Service Project, and Partnership with Business Project.
2020 Chapter Projects Recap
Although they were not able to compete this year, our three chapter project teams conducted multiple unique events this year and achieved tremendous results. They are recapped below.
American Enterprise Project
The American Enterprise Project Team:
Project Chair: Nisha Ramanthan
Vice-Chairs: Michael Zhao and Riddhi Somani
Secretary/Treasurer: Aneesh Ramanathan
Public Relations: Shreya Udupa
This year’s American Enterprise Project had the focus of spreading entrepreneurship to the local community. To do this, they held entrepreneurship classes at Dilworth elementary school, Miller middle school, and Sunflower afterschool. In addition, the project created a social media campaign that promoted various aspects of the American Enterprise system throughout the year. The team also had a table outside of the Cupertino library which allowed people of all ages to learn about the American System system in a fun and engaging way. To make an impact on Lynbrook FBLA members, the AEP team invited Arun Rajagopalan, founder of MotorQ, to speak at Lynbrook about his journey as an entrepreneur.
The AEP team speaks to Miller students about concepts relating to entrepreneurship.
Arun Rajagopalan speaks to Lynbrook FBLA about entrepreneurship and his company MotorQ.
Overall, the team put in over 1250 hours of service promoting entrepreneurship and the American Enterprise system to the local community and over 570 people were impacted by the project. The project received recognition from multiple local and national government officials and was featured on the Epic website.
Community Service Project
The Community Service Project Team:
Project Chair: Ishan Goyal
Vice-Chairs: Joyce Feng and Katherine Cui
Secretary: Elizabeth Cheng
Treasurer: Pranay Tiru
Public Relations: Angela Chung
Lynbrook FBLA members at senior spirit day wearing green, the color of BAOA.
Dr. Anne Ferguson as she speaks to Lynbrook FBLA members about Bay Area Older Adults.
This year’s Community Service Project had the goal of promoting senior wellbeing and awareness in the local community. The CSP team worked closely with Bay Area Older Adults (BAOA), a nonprofit that had the same goal, throughout the project. The project team enhanced BAOA’s website to make it more mobile-friendly and more accessible by disabled folks and had a tabling event at Bascom Branch Library to promote BAOA and its services. The project also had an awareness week in January featuring three events: a spirit day, a speaker event with BAOA’s founder Dr. Ferguson, and a senior field trip itinerary workshop. In addition, the project facilitated Valentine’s day card writing for lonely seniors.
Overall, the team’s efforts led to a 20% membership increase for BAOA and 100% chapter active member involvement. The project was recognized by multiple local government officials and Lynbrook principal Maria Jackson.
Partnership With Business Project
This year’s Partnership with Business Project worked with Sunnyvale Community Services (SCS), a nonprofit organization dedicated to tackling homelessness and hunger in the community. The PWB team started off the year by holding a canned food drive for SCS’ teen clients. The team also conducted a double bagging activity, in which multiple hours were put into creating over 800 double bags. To educate Lynbrook FBLA about SCS’s mission and services, SCS’ Community Navigator Janette Brambila came to Lynbrook to speak.
The Partnership With Business Project Team:
Project Chair: Eric Zhang
Vice-Chairs: Pranav Raj and Kaylin Li
Secretary: Edward Xiong
Treasurer: Ammar Khan
Overall, the project impacted about 50 families through its canned food drive and another 3200 through its double-bagging activity. The project was recognized by multiple local government officials and featured on many of SCS’s social media posts.