Arabia Mountain High School (AMHS), a college-prep magnet school located just outside of Atlanta, Ga., draws urban students who don’t typically have regular exposure to agriculture or plans to enter a technical career.
But 10 in each graduating class fall in love with agriculture, specifically the poultry industry, thanks to FFA sponsor U.S. Poultry & Egg Association (USPoultry) and Barbara Jenkins, executive director of the USPoultry Foundation (pictured above at right). The institutions, both based in DeKalb County, connected about seven years ago as part of the foundation’s student outreach program. “We’ve been working with them to foster their growth in ag, specifically poultry, and FFA since they’re right in our backyard,” says Jenkins, who holds an Honorary American FFA Degree.
“Minority groups [in agriculture] in the greater metro are kind of unheard of,” Jenkins adds. “We want to help grow their knowledge and interest, especially in poultry.”
It has worked: “From her persuading us, we just fell in love with chickens!” says agriculture teacher Sabrina Sterns Davis, who has taught in urban settings for 22 years, including five at AMHS. Before COVID-19, the school had three live chickens — Red (“Our girl!” Davis says), Miss Pearl and Leghorn. “We invited the chickens into our class like they were students and let them roam.”
Jenkins and the foundation donated the FFA chapter’s first working chicken coop, which they’d planned to celebrate with a ribbon-cutting ceremony in March 2020 before the school went virtual. Jenkins has also freely given her time, expertise and industry connections to assist in continued growth of this FFA chapter. She stops to check in, writes reference letters for students, invites the chapter to participate when the National FFA Officers visit the poultry association’s offices, sponsors students to attend the International Production & Processing Expo (IPPE) and takes them to help work the Georgia Poultry Federation’s Poultry World exhibit at the Georgia National Fair.
“I don’t know how many times I can say thank you,” Davis says of Jenkins. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. She’s helped me foster and train my students to value and embrace the poultry industry. She’s everything to us.
“We are a 100 percent African-American chapter. Our students don’t come in understanding what they can do with ag,” Davis says. “But you expose them to it, and they light up, and they want to do more.… A lot of my students love the poultry industry because they see an African-American woman in a leadership role extending a hand to help them. They see someone like them.”
That’s the very impact Jenkins hoped to make. “I hope they gain an understanding of who they are and what’s available to them in this industry,” she says, “and that they continue the minority outreach.”
To learn more about our sponsors and donors and how they are helping us grow the next generation of leaders who will change the world, visit the National FFA Foundation on FFA.org.
