Chick-fil-A wants you to do more than eat chicken. They also want you to be a leader.

Chick-fil-A Academy is a national high school leadership program that started a campus chapter this year. Thirty students were selected to help make a difference in their communities.

“We recently just did an impact project,” junior Cami Poole said. “We split into three different groups and the main focus of it was to either to do a do, drive, or donate and with that we try to find anyone in the community we can help come together to create an idea and we raise money.”

For the Do project the students helped out in the ICAP classroom making ornament while the Drive project was donating paper ornaments. They raised almost $200 and used that money to buy presents for the Angel Foster Care Agency. Lastly, the Deliver project, students got local businesses to donate food and candy and they put on a luncheon for the emergency call center in Austin.

“I like it because it teaches us how to take initiative on big projects,” junior Cameron Mongoven said. “And how it actually makes things happen on our own instead of expecting things to happen.”

Right now the students are discussing what they are going to do for the big impact project.

“We’re going to sponsor a Make-a-Wish donation for a child in need,” Mongoven said. “And we’re going to have a lot of fundraisers and raise a bunch of money so he can have his wish.”

Sponsor Keli McCabe leads the club each month, which includes going through the lessons the group provides through their online leadership course. McCabe and the student involved hope the leadership group stays for many years to come.

“I just want to work with people that need help,” sophomore Makenna Ramsey said. “My sisters are both adopted and seeing the foster system was hard.”

Students interested in being part of the academy next year need to fill out an application and expect to have Advocate in McCabe’s room, 2214.

“Through all our activities we become really close,” Mongoven said. ”Like most of them I didn’t even know before this school year, but since having Advocate with them we’ve all become super close and hung out outside of school.”