As children, juniors Jaden Ahn and Jana Ahn spent hours crafting storylines and acting out scenes with their stuffed animals, Jaden with his yellow Angry Bird and Jana with her toy Yoshi. What began as playful storytelling would build a sibling bond that would encourage teamwork to help them earn national-level success in FCCLA competitions.
“[The storylines] built a bond because we were able to have fun during the summer and the [arguments] allowed us to reason with one another,” said Jaden. “In FCCLA, the challenges are different, but the way we work out our problems through reasoning probably stemmed from us playing with stuffed animals.”
Jaden and Jana, despite being in the same grade, are not twins. They are 11 months apart in age. The siblings are preparing to compete at the FCCLA National Leadership Conference from July 5 to July 9 in Orlando, Fla.
FCCLA is a competitive club in which members present projects revolving around an area in family and consumer sciences such as child development, fashion, interior design or culinary arts, club adviser Kim Petty said.
After placing in the top 10 nationally last year for their entrepreneurship project, the siblings hope to improve their placement with a new business concept, a hypothetical pickleball business called “The Kitchen.”
“You have to talk about your services, the facilities that you’re gonna have, the location and also the legal information like tax forms,” Jana said.
The siblings chose pickleball as their business due to its rising popularity in general and on social media, Jana said.
According to Jaden, he and Jana have a blueprint and better understanding of the event after competing in it last year.
Jaden and Jana plan to edit their presentation to make it more visually appealing and are currently brainstorming handouts to show to the judges, Jaden said.
FCCLA competitors have 20 minutes to present to a panel of two or three judges and are scored based on a rubric assessing presentation skills, connection to family and consumer sciences and use of visuals.
The siblings are always trying to evaluate and understand why they got points off on their project and then readjust, Petty said.
According to Jaden, he decided to partner with Jana because it is easy for them to meet up and practice together.
“Usually if someone were to work with a friend, they have to arrange a different time where they’re both free and meet up at a certainlocation, whereas me and Jana, we both know each other’s schedules,” Jaden said.
“As siblings, you’re a lot more comfortable,” said Jaden. “You’re able to give each other constructive criticism and maybe have those arguments, whereas friends, you kind of want to soften it and maybe sugarcoat some things that are going wrong.”
According to Jana, her favorite part of working with her brother is being able to talk to him freely without anything bad occurring.
“I’d say [FCCLA] kind of strengthened [our relationship] because we have more to talk about because we’re doing these events together,” said Jana. “And if it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t even join things like DECA or FCCLA.”