By Yasir Khaleq, staff writer
The Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) is a club on campus, supported by local churches, that encourages the gathering of Christian and non-Christian students in a safe environment where they can enjoy themselves.
“[FCA] provides a fellowship of Christian and non-Christian student-athletes to come to school,” Trevor Staffieri (’17), co-president of FCA, said. “It’s a safe environment where they can come, share about problems or just listen to an athlete who’s been where [the students] have been, or have reached the highest level, and they’re striving to do.”
FCA is in its 5th year of existence on campus, and is one of the bigger, more impacting clubs here at Fountain Valley High School.
“It’s a good way for me to want to have another experience and more time with god during the week. It’s also just a good way for me to tell my non-christian friends about God… It’s a little less intimidating than church. It’s something that’s important to me, to help others communicate with Christ,” the other FCA co-president Myles de Courcy (’16) said.
FCA holds bi-weekly meetings in either room B-14 or the gym. During these meetings students eat pizza, listen to a guest speaker talk about their experience with Christianity and pray. Despite what the name of the club suggests, anyone at Fountain Valley High School is encouraged to attend meetings and participate.
“We were started by a coach who wanted to help his students study more. Now its a club for us to let anyone come in and they can get pizza and hang out, and hear the message from a guest speaker or one of the students. Its just a good way for us to administer to the students on campus,” de Courcy (’16) said.
FCA serves an important purpose to students at FVHS looking to get closer to their faith, or anyone looking for a place to hang out every other week. For de Courcy and Staffieri, they both had their own reasons for joining and staying with FCA.
“It’s definitely helped me put myself out there more than I already do. It’s given me some good leadership skills because when I grow up I wanna be a pastor and it’s definitely a tool that I’ll use later in my life to lead people to Christ, leading them to come to church events. Putting myself out there to my team, my friends who aren’t Christian and inviting them to an event like [FCA]” said Staffieri.
Looking to be more than simply a religious institution, FCA has projects to help the community and people all around the world. Recently, FCA has been doing some big things to try and leave a positive mark on those less fortunate.
“Currently over the next two years, we’re doing the water project. We’re trying to raise $12,000, which will build a well in a developing country. So that’s basically our goal off of campus. We do events such as dodgeball, we’re going to be selling t-shirts, we’re going to have a basketball tournament soon, and some other events like that” said Staffieri.
