Grant program helps improve Colorado FFA chapters

There are many career paths a young person can take. For those who want to be involved with agriculture, FFA can provide them with direction and purpose during their high school career.

Colorado FFA chapters have taken advantage of special funding to help bridge the gap between needs and actualities of school district budgets. The Colorado Corn FFA Grant Program assists FFA chapters in Colorado on projects that lack funding within their school budgets. The Colorado Corn Administrative Committee began its FFA grants program in 2013, awarding a $5,000 grant to the winner during the first year, and altogether has contributed nearly $30,000 to FFA chapters through this program, according to the website www.coloradocorn.com.

Three Colorado FFA chapters were awarded $2,500 each by CCAC in 2016—Manzanola FFA, Sedgwick County FFA and Holly FFA. The grants have helped advisors and students with projects ranging from helping a new chapter get off the ground, purchasing an automatic greenhouse irrigation system and building livestock facilities.

Launching

Sandwiched between Fowler and Rocky Ford, Colorado, the small community of Manzanola was once famous for its apple orchards. The town’s name is actually derived from Spanish meaning “red apple.”

For an agricultural community like Manzanola to not have a FFA chapter is surprising, given the community’s rich tradition in agriculture, said Becky Ball, Manzanola FFA advisor and ag science instructor.

“Our community depends mainly on agriculture to survive, being surrounded by farmer’s markets, alfalfa fields and all aspects of cattle growing and feeding,” she said.

The first-ever chapter in Manzanola was granted its charter in January 2016. Ball and Manzanola superintendent Tom Wilke worked to get the agricultural education program off the ground along with the help of school board members Damon Carroll, Jeremy Horn, Steve Bauserman, Tommy Reyes and Bill Hodges.

“The Ag Education program started with what was left of an industrial arts program that was converted into ag science and ag mechanics,” Ball said. “The original chapter consisted of 14 members, grades 8 to 12.”

The grant from CCAC was essential in getting the chapter up and running. Ball and chapter president Emily Horn were urged to apply for the grant by school board member Jeremy Horn. The pair never expected to receive a $2,500 grant.

“It was an absolute blessing,” Ball said. “Without the grant our students would have had to wait another year to experience FFA.”

With it they were able to purchase the items they would need—official manuals, official jackets, ties and scarves and CDE preparation materials.

“We started with basically nothing related to agriculture,” Ball said. “The students and community were very eager to learn and have been phenomenal in finding ways to better their school and community.”

FFA has quickly become one of the most popular activities in the school, reaching 24 students in the high school and 10 more in the middle school program.

“We were even able to fundraise enough for members to attend their very first National FFA Convention this year,” she said. “Had we not received this grant this would have never been a possibility.

“We owe much of our success to the Colorado Corn grant,” Ball added. “Our members have seen an entirely new world open up to them in the last year and we can’t wait for what the future holds.”

Building

Only a few years old, the Sedgwick County FFA chapter at Revere High School in Ovid, Colorado, continues to grow. Adviser Catie Appelfeller praised community members who saw the need to bring back FFA to the rural school district. The district has since added an agricultural education department including an agricultural mechanics shop, agriscience lab and classroom.

“Along with the agricultural education department came a strong FFA chapter with over half of the high school as members,” Appelfeller said.

Sedgwick County FFA currently has 15 high school members. Many agriscience courses are offered, including agricultural mechanics, agribusiness management, plant science and animal science.

Community members approached the chapter a few years ago to take over an annual pig-catching contest at a festival during Labor Day weekend. Appelfeller said this meant they’d need a place to house approximately 15 feeder pigs until the contest.

“As a chapter we decided that we would also keep the pigs to feed out after the contest,” she said. “This way students would have the hands on experience of bringing an animal to market.”

Several students in the Sedgwick County chapter have raised their own animals to show at various events and fairs. These students had a pretty good idea of the work and knowledge that went into the feeding process. Other students, however, did not.

“Each member of the chapter had a role to play in bringing these hogs to market weight, whether it was feeding on the weekend, building hog tight fence, finding the best feed to purchase, or marketing our whole and half hogs to the community,” she said.

During the first year of the pig-raising project, a local family generously offered the use of their barn. It was close to town and worked out well, but they needed something closer to the school. This is where applying for the Colorado Corn FFA grant came into play.

“With the help of Colorado Corn we were able to hire someone in the community to build us a nice three-sided barn to house our pigs in the fall,” she said.

Appelfeller and 2016-17 chapter president Madison White applied for the grant and the pair had support from school administration. Applying for the grant was a little cumbersome, but made them realize they had a genuine need for the facilities and a strong plan helped them be realistic.

“I don’t think we could have done it without our administration and school board contributing to the project also,” Appelfeller said.

Having the facility close to the school for the chapter allows the kids to get hands on experience they might not be able to get any where else.

“So far this year the barn has been used to teach soft skills like responsibility and communication to our young members as well as safe animal handling practices and animal science and health to our older members,” Appelfeller said.

The barn will mainly be used to raise the feeder pigs for the festival, but during the spring and summer the chapter will offer barn space to students raising animals for fair that may not otherwise have a place to keep them.

Like Ball, Appelfeller is very thankful for the grant from Colorado corn.

“We are extremely grateful to have received this grant from Colorado Corn,” she said. “We would definitely encourage other chapters to apply.”

Improving

The Holly Colorado FFA chapter is no stranger to applying for grants to improve their program. Fifteen years ago, they group received a grant to help fund a greenhouse.

“The greenhouse that was built has been a great asset to the school and the community,” Rheanna Melcher, agriculture education instructor and FFA adviser at Holly said. “It has provided great learning opportunities that not only teaches students the production side of producing vegetable plants and flowers but also the business side of running a greenhouse.”

In the greenhouse, students learn how to take and track inventory, market their product, advertise it and then sell.

“Our greenhouse provides valuable products for our community members to purchase while supporting our agriculture education program,” she said.

The need for improvement of the existing greenhouse came within the past couple years. The Holly School District is on a four-day school week, which created a problem for watering in the greenhouse.

“It creates a challenge to ensure the quality and health of the plants,” Melcher said. “With water being an issue in southeast Colorado, a new automated watering system would provide the educational opportunity to teach students water conservation and new efficient applications.”

Melcher and past chapter president Trace Salzbrenner applied for the Colorado Corn grant in 2016 and received $2,500. An automated watering system was installed using the funds and besides the obvious task of watering the plants it also showed students how a professional greenhouse is set up and ran.

“Through this updated technology we are able to produce more plants, more efficiently,” she said. “Showing the students through different technologies and correct applications that we can have a greater return to our program. This would make the greenhouse self-sustaining.”

Even though the addition of the watering system makes their greenhouse more efficient and sustainable, it also opens a few doors for the students interested in horticulture.

“When we are able to show students technologies that are in the marketplace or industry today, they are able to have a better understanding of what is available to work with if they were to go into business for themselves or work for a greenhouse company,” Melcher said. “Concepts such as these are appealing to students.”

Since the addition of the new technology, she predicts there will be more students involved in FFA.

“We foresee our horticulture class specifically to increase in numbers as well as increasing the number of students into our agriculture education program,” Appelfeller said. “The more opportunities and real world applications we can provide students will help in our retention of students in our program.”

Appelfeller and the Holly FFA chapter hope to continue to seek further funding to improve their group and its facilities.

“We greatly appreciate grant opportunities such as this one through Colorado Corn that sees the value of FFA and our students who are the future farmers, ranchers, business owners, entrepreneurs, and much more,” she said.

The deadline to apply for the 2017 grants ended Nov. 15. For more information about the FFA grant program visit, www.coloradocorn.com.

Kylene Scott can be reached at [email protected] or 620-227-1804.