Ocoee High School FFA members and supporters stand in front of the Ocoee City Hall.
Ocoee High School FFA members and supporters took to the stands during the June commissioner meeting at the Ocoee City Hall to urge the community to help with a disruptive development.
Back in early May, Ocoee High FFA Secretary Payton Grant noticed some construction laid out on the road that served as the only outlet to her agriculture program’s land lab. Realizing that the city may have brushed over the development plans and didn’t realize how valuable that access point was to the community, Grant decided to contact officials.
“I emailed the mayor and persisted with the issue in my chapter and community,” she says. “As development went on, we found out we were losing road access. I told friends and fellow FFA members that we should attend the monthly city commissioner meeting.”
After members heard about Grant’s initiative, they immediately jumped on board to present personal statements during the meeting, in hopes of showcasing how the issue affected them and guiding community leaders toward a solution.
Madelyn Young, an FFA member who has spent four years at Ocoee High School showing livestock within the school’s agriculture program, chose to take a unique perspective with her speech. She wanted to bring awareness to how FFA has changed her outlook on life and how the issue at hand upset her.
“My FFA family never fails to make me smile and support me in my decisions,” she says. “I believe the development may interfere with students’ opportunities to find a second family and learn life lessons.”
Young’s approach showed the city how FFA can grow future generations, but not if the chapter isn’t running at its fullest potential.
Ocoee High FFA President Ava Yarborough and member Zyah Pierre also spoke at the meeting, bringing two more views to the stage. Yarborough spoke about various problems, including privacy, that have emerged since the onset of construction and how “no student or parent should have to worry about such matters when we are pursuing our passion for agriculture.”
Pierre, on the other hand, brought up how welcoming the environment was when she initially discovered her FFA chapter.
“FFA helped me explore new careers, new skills and new opportunities to show my leadership,” she says. “This program is so important to the school, which is why we need the same respect as everyone else.”
Ocoee High School FFA Advisor Amy Anderson and supporter Thomas Lightbody (TK Photography) also highlighted the matter. Their presentations covered how the program has affected their lives as adults and advocated for the parents, school faculty members and local community supporters who are looking for a solution.
Overall, the outcome wasn’t immediate, but the acknowledgment of the FFA chapter gained recognition from many city members who got the ball rolling for steadfast development. In the future, the plan is to get the road paved and opened soon.
“While we may not know all of what will be done to protect our land lab, we were able to make a lot of progress in the community,” Grant says. “This situation has brought so many great things to our chapter such as support from faculty, business owners, students, friends and officials all over central Florida who are willing to stand behind us and see our chapter flourish.”
