In just about a month, 1,000s of FFA members and their supports will be in Madison for the Wisconsin State FFA Convention. This year end celebration of all the FFA members, agricultural educators, and stakeholders have accomplished through the year will be June 10-13th this year. Numerous competitors will complete in final rounds of speaking contests, and winners of Supervises Agricultural Experiences will be announced. But as much as this event is about celebrating all of the accomplishments, these students also take the time to give back.
“Our students are actually going out into the Madison community, and they are doing hands on service projects. So they may be working at a food pantry or they may be cleaning a park. There’s just a variety of actual service projects that they are doing on site to help the Madison community. The other big thing we have is later in the day, we have our Rally to Fight Hunger. That’s where we work with Second Harvest, where we’re actually packaging food that will be used in the food pantry in the Madison area.”
Not only will students be participating in a day of service, but this is the first year the Wisconsin Convention will be holding a concert! Chris Kroeze, a runner up on The Voice, will be hosting a concert for registered attendees of this year’s state convention. And Chris won’t be the only musical attraction. Every year students from across the state also participate in the State FFA Band and Choir during state convention, showcase all the areas that students can excel in. And artists of all types can participate in the agricultural artwork contest.
And all of these achievements wouldn’t be possible without the help of the agricultural educators, who put in time with these students all year. Although there is always a need for more teachers, it seems as if they need will continue to grow.
“We’re also seeing Ag programs in Wisconsin that are adding teachers, not just changing teachers or replacing teachers, but programs like Sun Prairie they are adding a new additional Ag teacher. Evansville hired a new Ag teacher, Waunakee is adding another position. So now what we’re seeing is, we’re are seeing Ag programs that not only have one teacher, but two or three teachers, that are helping provide opportunities for students in Ag Education and FFA.”
During convention the new state officers will be elected, and the 2019-2020 president will be announced. If you want to learn more about the Wisconsin State FFA Convention, you can go to wisconsinffa.org.
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