When graduate Sena Ruid was a junior at SFHS, she felt a calling.

Her faith had always been an important part of her life, but so were athletics. As a softball player, a member of the track team and a participant in strength and conditioning, in September of 2022, Ruid established the Fellowship of Christian Athletes at SFHS.

“My main goal for this was to just bring people to Jesus,” said Ruid. “Even if I exposed one person to how amazing he is, I would’ve been happy.” 

Sena’s father worked at Champlin Park High School and that was where she discovered FCA meetings.

“They have a big FCA and I went to a couple meetings for fun,” she said. 

She hoped the organization could bring other students closer to their faith, and having student- led meetings was the perfect opportunity. Champlin Park’s meetings inspired her enough to start the journey of creating an FCA program for St. Francis.

“I believe Jesus should be in more than just church,” she said. “He has a place in every aspect of our lives. I saw the way he was moving at Champlin Park and I was in awe.” 

To start off her journey, Ruid reached out to St. Francis math teacher Jake Loukinen.

“I reached out to him because I had no idea how to get this off the ground,” she said. “I had him for a teacher and we talked about our hopes of bringing something like this (CPHS FCA) to St. Francis.”

 Loukinen agreed happily; he had been attempting to figure out a way to  provide a space for students to grow in their faith together. 

“I had her in class at the time and she asked me if I was willing to be the adviser and I was like yeah of course, that would be awesome,” said Loukinen.

Ruid also reached out to Anoka Highschool FCA leaders Sydney Kress and Owen Johnson who she knew from a mutual friend.

“Sena reached out to Owen and me when we were finishing out senior year of high school,” said Kress. “We were still student leaders of Anoka High School’s FCA.”

Kress and Johnson had a gut feeling that this is what God called them to do, and they would help her.

“Neither of us had started a huddle from scratch this way before,” they said. “Anoka’s FCA was already well developed when we became student leaders, so this was new.”

Throughout the Summer of 2022, Ruid gathered enough people to start having weekly summer meetings at Johnson’s house.

“We dove right into scripture and let God do the rest,” they responded in a written interview. 

In September 2022 there was the first St. Francis FCA meeting at SFHS in Loukinen’s classroom, 10-15 students attended.

“I just hoped to provide a space for students to grow in their faith together in school,” said Loukinen.

Now, at the first FCA meeting of the 2025-26 school year there were too many students for Mr. Loukinen’s room to fit.

“Seeing how much it has grown really puts into perspective how important just planting a seed can be,” said Ruid.