Celebrating the value of Give FFA Day
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It is National FFA Week – a time I look forward to every year. You won’t see a sea of blue jackets walking around downtown Indianapolis like you do during the National FFA Convention and Expo in the fall, but this celebration is even bigger. That’s because each of our more than 945,000 FFA members can participate from wherever they call home.
National FFA Week is an incredible time for participants, alumni and supporters to be advocates for agricultural education and all things FFA. Each day has a specific call to action, with opportunities to share stories about ag teachers and mentors, show off their blue jackets or do service projects. Growing up in southwest Michigan, we used to host pancake breakfasts so we could talk with people about what FFA was all about. Each of our more than 9,000 chapters across the country gets to decide how they want to commemorate the occasion.
Thursday is Give FFA Day and we have a big goal this year – to raise one million dollars in 24 hours. The money collected will go toward participants on a national and state level, paying for career and leadership programs, FFA camps, teacher support, and even those iconic blue jackets that some of our participants can’t afford on their own. This is an opportunity to give back to a program that gives so much and has been supporting families for a century. Through the last several years of our Give FFA Day fundraising efforts, we have been amazed and humbled by the generosity of people all over the country.
Some of our corporate partners take this as an opportunity to have friendly competitions and challenges around giving. John Deere and Syngenta, both long-standing supporters of FFA, are facing off to see who can raise more money this year. Others, such as RFD-TV and American Family Insurance, have offered to match donations up to a certain amount. Every little bit helps as we try to reach our goal – and we hope you will give too.
FFA is an integral piece of what makes Indiana so special. Basketball, racing, and agriculture are our signature brands in the state, which is also home to the National FFA headquarters on the northwest side of Indianapolis. The National FFA Convention & Expo is going to be in Indianapolis through at least 2033, making our iconic blue jackets a fixture during that week.
Even if you haven’t personally been involved with FFA, everyone has a vested interest in food. As a global community, we need to feed 9 billion people and our participants could contribute to this on a huge, international scale by developing agricultural technology of the future, on a more localized scale by working on a farm, or in a multitude of other ways in between.
I’ve worked with National FFA for decades, and the thing I love most about the organization is that it gives kids who wouldn’t necessarily have an opportunity otherwise to be stand-out students. Our teachers and mentors find students who may not have found their niche yet and help them feel engaged in something new – agricultural education – and they thrive. For some young people, FFA may be the only team they ever join.
It doesn’t matter what your background is, how much athletic ability you have or anything else. Anyone can participate, and that’s just one reason why so many young people end up in FFA. The organization continues to grow, with chapters in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Whether you have a blue jacket of your own or not, I hope you can see the value of FFA and join our team this week as we aim for our fundraising goal and celebrate National FFA Week from coast to coast.