By Stephen Smoot
Last year, the Lincoln High School DECA Club won a community improvement grant applied toward improvements and events on the West Fork River Rail Trail.
In 2024, the club members look ready, willing, and able to top those efforts.
Club advisor Julie Yearego shared that “our Lincoln High School DECA students have been busy with multiple projects and events this fall.” The work will continue on through the Christmas season into winter as well.
The Rail Trail committee built on last year’s success by planning a Haunted Trail to celebrate Hallowe’en. They took the lead in organizing, hosting, and planning the event. Yearego noted that “this brought over 400 visitors to Shinnston.”
Visitors and residents coming up the road between the Haywood Power Plant and Dollar General likely noticed that the road had been spruced up. DECA club members and Yearego donned blaze orange, not to hunt in the woods, but to track down trash on the side of the road as part of their work for the Adopt-A-Highway program.
Their hard work filled 20 bags of garbage, improving the view and protecting the habitat of wild and plant life at the same time.
Better than presents under the tree comes the gift of volunteer service from the club to the City of Shinnston and its people. The DECA club is planning the Christmas Market event on Dec 7 in conjunction with the Christmas Parade and Shinnston Community Band concert.
Also by way of giving back, club members are shopping for the Angel Luv project, Feed A Family, and Operation Christmas Child to ensure that children don’t go without this Christmas season.
According to the website of the national organization, DECA Clubs prepare “emerging leaders and entrepreneurs for careers in marketing, finance, hospitality, and management in high schools and colleges across the globe.” They have over a quarter of a million members participating in just under 4,000 chapters in high schools around the world.