The National FFA Convention & Expo is such an impactful experience, but not all members and guests get the opportunity to attend due to distance and financial constraints. Student Engagement and Travel Assistance Grants can make the trip much more manageable.
Screven (Ga.) FFA advisor Nancy Sell’s chapter benefitted from these grant funds.
“We’re a Title 1 school…a lot of times finances are an obstacle for our students to be able to participate,” she says. “I always want to try and help them either remove obstacles or help them hurdle them to get passed so that they can make the most of what FFA has to offer.”
The grant covers all sorts of financial burdens, including the cost of the trip and FFA jackets, but it also offers scholarship and internship opportunities.
“We believe that FFA is the future of life out here; the future of rural America. Incredible leaders, incredible students,” says Marti Skold-Jordan, executive director of the Tractor Supply Company Foundation. “And we want to help educate and uplift them. So we do Grants for Growing, which is for struggling chapters. We raised money for that. We also have a $5 million scholarship called the FFA Future Leaders Scholarship.
Attendees of a four-year college can receive $10,000 and $5,000 is awarded if they’re attending community college or skills training. “This will be our third year that opens up November 1st, so we hope everybody applies for it,” Skold-Jordan says. “Then we’re walking around (the expo) with gift cards and if we see a student that doesn’t have a jacket, that might be their uncle’s jacket or their brother’s jacket, we’ll give them a gift card. We also do travel assistance, so we sent 10 schools here that couldn’t afford to come.”
Georgia’s Screven County FFA received travel assistance funds. Member Coraline Woodall explained how important it was for her to attend this convention and how because of the grant, she can further her future.
“This grant is so important because it helped my chapter and I’m sure many other chapters get here. It helped us get here,” she says. “It is so important for us as FFA members to have this experience and to meet all these people and to look at these careers and look at these colleges and to get further in the world and further in the world of FFA.”
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