In middle school, I had an undying passion for… well… nothing. As sad as it was, my days primarily consisted of the only thing I was actually great at: school. When it came to school, I was a star; in my extra-curricular activities, not so much. My club meetings were okay, but you’d be insane to think that I would break out of my shell to take up a leadership position in any of them. My dance class after school was a fun opportunity to hang out with my friends, but I showed absolutely no potential in becoming a prima ballerina one day. There was nothing that I truly loved to do, and I had no idea what crowd I would fall under in high school.

          Sure enough, middle school ended in the blink of an eye and I decided to end my impassivity along with it. The summer before high school began, I dragged myself into the involvement fair held for incoming freshman. I was immediately drawn to an organization called DECA which, despite its name, is ironically not an acronym. While it doesn’t literally stand for anything, each of its members stood for something: leadership. In my freshman year, I became a member of this community of individuals with a passion for leadership and an interest in the business field.

          The Flanagan High School DECA Chapter was 154 members strong. Unsurprisingly – as a shy and timid freshman girl – it felt impossible to make such a widespread community feel tight-knit. However, because I knew I wanted to be a part of DECA, I was determined to do just that. To my own surprise, I became so obsessed with the idea of starting over in high school that I made a move so bold, I could hardly even recognize myself. After only a few short weeks of club meetings, I boldly chose to become involved as a leader in the organization by joining the social media committee.

          The social media team, consisting of myself and 16 other students, collectively ran accounts such as Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Our job was to keep our classmates informed, essentially making us the glue that held the organization together. Without our constant posts, the club members wouldn’t know when to show up for meetings or attend events. This responsibility gave us a strong sense of honor and a feeling of accomplishment every single day. From my first year in this position, I instantly knew it was my passion. I carried on with managing our website throughout all four years of high school because being the person that everyone turned to for information made me feel visible for the very first time in my life. Posting articles about what my peers were interested in made me feel heard, and receiving positive feedback from the team made me feel special.

          Don’t get me wrong; as fun as my role in DECA was, it was completely and utterly exhausting. Being at the core of the organization made me the person that literally every member turned to. I had to simultaneously juggle demands from the chapter president with the demands I was making of other officers on the team. Being a freshman made it incredibly difficult for me to nag our secretary for the meeting minutes or remind our public relations manager to send out emails. However, this was an integral component of my job because if I promised the students that there would be certain resources available, I needed to deliver. Regardless of the other officers being 2 or 3 years older than me, I often had to take matters into my own hands in order to successfully accomplish my goals for the website. I was determined to make this happen because I knew that slacking off would result in chaos for the whole group.

          The website’s most valuable and popular feature was the news tab, which consisted of everything from short updates to missed meeting itineraries. This was the part of the website that truly made my job feel important, because without having posted these updates, the entire chapter would be far less informed. The news tab was a text with which the organization simply could not function without. In the middle of my sophomore year, I came down with a horrible sinus infection that caused me to miss school every day for a week. That same week, I was informed by the chapter president that only 15 of our 154 members attended the meeting. This number was extremely alarming considering our average turn out of 90 kids. At the next meeting, we asked the group about the poor turn out, to which most of them replied, “We had a meeting? It wasn’t on the website.” It was in this moment that I realized our students were lost without my constant updates. That tab had become the core of the chapter, and the true foundation of its success. My impact on DECA truly held the team together, and no words can describe how humbling it is to feel that important.

          Being in charge of that website was by far the most significant aspect of the club for me. The website instantly became the foundation of our DECA chapter, and the fact that I was running it made it all the more special. For the chapter members, the news tab on our website was single-handedly the most important resource they could have. From bookmarking the tab in their computers to personally asking me to featuring them in a blog post, I could see the impact I was making on my chapter. As the website’s creator, I had access to all kinds of information that allowed me to monitor the site’s hourly foot traffic. Watching the numbers grow every single week really emphasized the importance of my position in DECA. This progression I witnessed was truly inspiring and it and allowed me to finally step out of the background and allow myself to become somebody I was truly proud of. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t just known as the “smart girl” and I had finally found my niche.