By LOIS KINDLE
lekindle@aol.com
Three Lennard High School FFA members recently took it upon themselves to promote the program to eighth graders who’ll be incoming freshmen at Lennard this fall. The teens — Macey Council, 17; Timmy Stinson, 18; and Sascha Overduijn, 17 — visited LLT Academy South Bay in Ruskin on April 1, where they pitched the benefits of FFA to a crowd they estimated at 80 to 100 eighth-grade students.
Their presentation highlighted the leadership, hands on learning and community involvement that define Lennard’s well-known agriculture program and offered younger students a friendly, peer to peer look at what FFA can mean for their high school experience.
LOIS KINDLE PHOTO
Lennard High School seniors Sascha Overduijn, 17, left; Macey Council, 17; and Timmy Stinson, 18, recently visited LLT Academy South Bay in Ruskin on April 1, where they pitched FFA to a crowd of 80 to 100 eighth-graders. They happily reported half of the students were interested in checking it out this fall as incoming Lennard freshmen.
“About half of them showed real interest in taking Ag Foundations or Vet I and then joining FFA,” said Stinson, noting he followed in the footsteps of most of his family members when he joined FFA four years ago.
Now nearing graduation, all three high-schoolers have different career paths in mind, and they want the incoming freshmen to understand all the opportunities FFA offers.
“I encourage students to join the national FFA organization because it helps build leadership, confidence and real-world skills, said Macey Council, whose family has a long farming history in Ruskin. “It’s so much more than animals and farming. It offers many hands-on experiences and opportunities that prepare you for college and future careers, while being part of a strong community.
“I wanted to develop lifelong skills that would help me pursue a career somewhere in the agriculture industry, she continued. “I’m going on to Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in Tifton, Ga., to become a middle school agriculture teacher.”
Stinson, who thoroughly enjoyed the mechanics classes he took as an FFA member, plans to become certified as a diesel technician at Manatee Technical College and specialize in electronics.
“I encourage other students to join FFA so the program continues, and they can experience what we have, while gaining lifelong friends,” he said.
And Overduijn plans to earn a degree in management with a minor in environmental policy at Florida State University before attending law school and becoming an agricultural attorney.
“I became an FFA member because I fell in love with a baby goat,” she said. “She pushed me to join to get more animals like her, and from there I just grew to love every part of the program. “I encourage others to join because there are so many different opportunities through the program. Even if you don’t want to go into veterinary medicine or anything like that, it opens the door to so many other career paths and even helps you branch out as a person.”
Each of these teens learned valuable lessons from both failure and successes in FFA. From heartbreaking losses to championship wins, their rebounds taught them the value of patience, time management, personal responsibility and other life skills they will use throughout their lives.
And that, after all, is what FFA is about.
More on FFA
FFA is a national organization that introduces middle and high school students to the broad world of agriculture and the many careers connected to it. Because it’s woven directly into agricultural education classes, students take part in FFA through their coursework, hands on projects and supervised agricultural experiences.
At its core, FFA is designed to help young people grow as leaders. The program emphasizes confidence, responsibility and practical skills that support students as they move into college, the workforce and their communities.
The organization operates as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and is one of the country’s largest youth groups, with more than 1 million members across all 50 states, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Founded as Future Farmers of America, the group adopted the name National FFA Organization in 1988 to reflect the changing landscape of agriculture — a field that now includes everything from environmental science and biotechnology to agribusiness, engineering and natural resource management.
For more information, visit www.ffa.org/.