A group of Washington high school students in Spokane is growing fruits and vegetables to donate to their school cafeteria and a local food pantry. Students in Greely, Colo., are mentoring refugee families by helping them grow container gardens and offset rising food costs.
Students in Rolesville, N.C., are raising hens and donating their eggs to low-income families. And Oklahoma students in Stillwater are raising livestock to provide fresh pork for an elementary food program.
The students – and thousands like them throughout the U.S. – are all FFA members utilizing grant monies to implement long-term, real-world solutions to ease hunger in their communities.
Nearly $300,000 of grants has been awarded through support of the National FFA Organization from RAM Trucks, Farmers Feeding the World, the Donaldson Foundation and Monsanto to start new service-learning projects or sustain existing programs they have created to fight hunger locally. More than 120 FFA chapters have received a $2,500 FFA: Food for All grant to develop and implement hunger solutions in their schools or communities this year.
All initiatives rely on FFA members and their chapters as a whole for implementation. In addition to providing food solutions, students also volunteer to help teach fellow students, grade-school students, residents and community groups how to care for, grow, prepare and preserve food.
Last year, 6,127 FFA members partnered with 8,224 non-FFA youth to volunteer a combined 156,163 hours in their communities to fight hunger. More than 207,000 pounds of fresh produce, meat and eggs were donated by FFA: Food for All grant recipients last year.
To learn more about what FFA chapters are doing with their grants to ease hunger in their communities, visit FFA.org/FoodForAll.
The National FFA Organization provides leadership, personal growth and career success training through agricultural education to 579,678 student members in grades seven through 12 who belong to one of 7,570 local FFA chapters throughout the U.S., Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
Source : ffa.org