KAFCE WEEK – October 13-19, 2022
What is KAFCE you ask ? Kansas Association for Family and
Community Education. FCE was founded in 1936 under the name of
National Home Demonstration Council (HDU) during an international women’s conference held in Washington D.C. It became the driving force in providing rural women with education in basic life skills.
Today FCE continues to stress education, concerns of family and
communities.
This organization worked to promote public opinion for investing
funds to establish public health services, County Health Departments.
In the 1940s members prepared hot meals and took them to local classrooms.
They worked to raise public awareness to establish a school lunch
program.
Fostering rural reading programs, members took carloads of books into rural communities and supported bookmobiles.
Using easy to understand and easy to teach lessons named , “The
Hearth Fire Series,” rural women learned about a variety of topics ranging from consumer issues such as buying safe food, to health lessons, learning about mammograms and the pap test, to public policy areas, the Judicial System, to media awareness topics.
FCE is a recognized leader in the areas of children. The
organization was a force in getting rating symbols displayed at the
beginning of television programs. Addressing media sources – video
games, the internet, music, books, magazines, etc. – FCE tries to help
parents make purchasing and viewing choices appropriate for
their children by educating adults and youth to the pros and cons of
various media sources that the youth are exposed to in the 21st
Century – books, video games, cyberspace, music, movies, cell
phones and sexting.
FCE also works to instill values in elementary children to
build and promote character using storybooks to teach children
character values. Volunteers present these lessons in the schools at
the fourth grade level.
Leadership through education is the key, volunteerism is the
means. The mission of the FCE – past, present and future – connects
with families. FCE looks to the future to empower women to change
their lives, their families and their communities for the better with
three main goals in mind:
CONTINUING EDUCATION
DEVELOPING LEADERSHIP
COMMUNITY ACTION
Kansas FCE Creed
I believe in the principles of the Kansas Association for Family
and Community. Education which strives to promote a better way of
life for all families and communities in making the world a better place in which to live. Through leadership, may we have pride in our role as volunteer educators, be conscious of the needs of others, and be strengthened by our unity.
There are 82 Family and Community Units in the Southwind
District. Two of these units are in Bourbon County – Starlite FCE,
which meets at 2:00 on the third Thursday of each month in the
Yeager Building at the Bourbon County Fairgrounds (for more
information call Glenda Miller 620-547-2401) and Thursday Night Live FCE, which meets at 5:30 on the third Thursday of the month at
various locations (for more information call Lori Nelson
620-215-9373.) An educational lesson is presented at each meeting,
with refreshments and lots of good fellowship.
Come join us! Consider this your invitation to drop in and find
out for yourself what FCE is all about. Join with us as we strive to
strengthen families, through continuing education, leadership
development and community action. We welcome you !