This weekend, everyone (well, except you, Arizona) turned their clocks forward for Daylight Saving Time. Last month, chapters wrapped up their Living to Serve Grants, and the coming week signals the official beginning of spring, which an excellent time to consider breathing in the fresh air while serving your community by kicking off service projects.
Especially with many schools at or close to spring break, FFA members may find themselves with the opportunity to help others or simply to inspire moving forward with projects in the short school weeks that follow spring break. After all, National FFA Week was a time when so many around the country stepped up to donate to and benefit FFA. It seems fitting to spend some time coming up giving back and connecting people to agriculture through FFA.
Some of the more common types of community service efforts include volunteering, canned food or clothing drives, or trash clean-ups, but FFA is known for serving others through traditional and non-traditional service projects.
Here are a few community service ideas to help inspire you and/or your chapter:
- Meet community needs through service. Reaching out to local leadership can help FFA members an chapters to better understand where their efforts may be best-needed and felt.
- Consider volunteering where your interests or strengths lie. Many local non-profits will have opportunities for high-school-aged volunteers.
- Read at your local library. Perhaps you can help the library with spring break activities for youth, or just simply read to younger kids. And, even better, you may be able to bring a little ag literacy with you on the way.
- Want to donate blood? If your school doesn’t already hold an FFA blood drive, you may be able to inspire your chapter to work with the American Red Cross to get one started! Keep in mind, however, that you’ll need parental consent, and age and health restrictions exist for donation.
- Create care kits for homeless shelters or cancer patients. Depending on your community’s structure, care kits can offer some comfort to others in your community who might be in need.
- Structural updates to community areas. If you have a strong ag mech program in your FFA chapter, or perhaps, if you yourself are talented in this area, you may find that a local community area (think zoo, community garden, walking paths, etc.) could use a bench, table, or other useful updates. Reach out to the non-profits or community managers for these areas to see where you might be able to use your manufacturing skills to help others.
- Offer tutoring to other students. You might be surprised where your academic strengths lie when you step up to help another student, or group of students with subjects or areas they’re struggling. A fun way to make this more engaging, is to tie in some of the real-world, applicable things agriculture and FFA has taught you about other subjects.
- Hold a food drive, or offer to help volunteer at a local food pantry. Find out who in your area is in need of help or donations, and what they need, and whether you or your chapter can help collect food items or volunteers to help out.
- Help clean up your community. Whether you have a few minutes, hours, or even days you can help clean up your community as an individual member, or as a chapter group. Pick a spot to get started such as your school, a local park, or even your neighborhood, and get started. Chapter might even consider having contests for whoever can collect the most trash.
- Write letters to senior citizens in assisted living communities. While we don’t always think about writing letters in the digital age, words on paper are a novelty that can be cherished. Consider reaching out to senior centers to see if they will accept thoughtful letters to their residents — you’re sure to brighten someone’s day with your kindness and stories.
»Related: Living to serve: Branson FFA volunteers pack 12,848 meal
