Future Leaders of America is the newest club at Downey High School, started by Ben Gutierrez, 11, during the past week of January 28. The club has the roots of JSA, but it focuses more on republican and democratic debates.
Q1: What was your motivation in creating the club?
A1: I wanted to start something that was strictly political when it came to debates. I just wanted to separate from JSA because I liked the more political side.
Q2: By making this, what do you plan to achieve?
A2: I want to get teens more interested in politics. I want to get them used to different aspects. Like, I’d like for people to see one view of [politics] from the republican side and one view of it from the democrat side.
Q3: Where did you get the idea for the club?
A3: It was something that I first came up with my friend, and we saw that there weren’t many clubs at school that focused just on the view of politics, so we decided to make the club.
Q4: When you first thought up the idea, did you have any doubts?
A4: I didn’t really have many doubts at first. I was just a little nervous and anxious to see how it would all turn out. After we had the first meeting, I saw that we had things to improve on that would get students more interested so that we’d have bigger turnouts at our meetings.
Q5: What do you plan to do for the club’s future?
A5: I hope to keep it on campus after I leave and since it’s only during A lunch right now; I hope to have meetings after school so that we can accommodate to people’s schedules, because they might have sports or other clubs to focus on.
