Rising Stars: Meet Lillian Fadeley of Arcadia

Today we’d like to introduce you to Lillian Fadeley.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
During my freshman year, I joined multiple clubs but struggled to find one that is dedicated to community service and fits my goals in life. Volunteering has always been a passion of mine, but NHS isn’t available to underclassmen at Arcadia. So during the summer before sophomore year I did some research into some clubs and organizations that I could bring to my high school. That’s when I discovered that I could create an American Red Cross club at my school. So I got a couple of friends together and filled out all the paperwork. Going into my sophomore year we had an amazing turn out of kids who were just like me looking for a club that volunteers. We averaged around 30 members per meeting which exceeded the typical club attendance. It was amazing to see so many dedicated students. However it was a pretty rough year, lots of things I had to learn as a leader of a club whether that’s running a meeting, talking to admin, and communicating with my club sponsor. After that year of learning the officers and I decided to continue the club into the following year. And here we are!! We hosted an otter pop fundraiser, volunteer at Feed My Starving Children, earned 12 cpr certifications, hosted a donation drive, and just recently hosted a walk a thon that raised $1850. And we are hoping to do even more and get even better this next year and for years to come.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It was not the smoothest journey, but it wasn’t the hardest either. One of the biggest challenges was navigating the processes of getting events approved and maintaining good member engagement. However, as we continued planning events the process became much smoother. With getting more events moving translated into better member engagement. Getting started was definitely more challenging than I initially expected it to be. Getting the word out to students was another big challenge. Club rush always tends to see big numbers but retaining members is the true challenge so I knew that was going to be the hardest of maintaining those numbers. We worked through this by having fun meetings in the mix of the normal meetings. I learned that setting up committees that were given specific instructions and goals to accomplish not only encouraged members to help and plan but it also taught me what a good leader looks and acts like.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
We are a club at Arcadia High School and we mainly focus on volunteering and maintaining the American Red Cross values and mission. Last year as a club we ended with just over 80 hours of community service. This current year, based off of our last check of volunteering hours, we are already just over 70 hours with three months left of the school year! We uphold the American Red Cross values and mission by having events that are specifically related to the mission and values.

Risk taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
My view on risk taking is that you will only have those fulfilling successes if you take that risk and failing at that risk will simply be a learning experience that will help you grow. That growth will lead to get that next success. Our biggest risk was our walk a thon, a lot of personal money mixed with money we have fundraised went into the walk a thon. We didn’t start with a big outcome but going into the day of the event we had just under 40 runners.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: arcadiaredcross