Fort Frye FFA members taught lessons about ATV and farm safety to Lower Salem Elementary students. Presenters included from left: Victoria Bradford, Christy Willis, Jaden Cox, Kallie Boley, Parker Burris, and Paige Morgenstern. (Photo provided)

BEVERLY — The Fort Frye FFA Chapter organized and put on three events in October that gave back to the community and even to hurricane relief.

Members participated in our district’s elementary safety day events. Members Parker Burris, Kallie Boley, Victoria Bradford, Jaden Cox, Christy Willis, and Paige Morgenstern used interactive lessons to teach the elementary school kids at Salem Liberty. Their lessons focused on how to be safe by wearing a helmet on ATVs and how to remain safe around moving farm machinery by being aware. Members who visited Beverly Center Elementary school consisted of Reiley Miller, Hannah Weiker, Brooke Stottsberry, Reagan Witten, Kilynn Wynn, and Peyton Offenberger. This group used interactive lessons to encourage students to be safe around equipment and livestock. This made us think about who could be filling our spots in the future of FFA. This was a great way for our chapter to give back to our whole district rather than just doing things at the high school.

Our chapter hosted our annual Fort Frye FFA Alumni Sausage Dinner. The chapter’s officer team decided to change the goal and purpose of this event, as a team they decided to donate all of the profits to the Hurricane Crisis Relief Fund. Due to the large amount of community support we received, we donated $600 to the relief fund! The chapter sold sausage sandwiches and loaded baked potatoes to raise this money. We can’t thank our community enough for all the support they showed, whether you donated the potatoes or sausage or just bought a sandwich, we wouldn’t have been able to do it without your support!

The last event our chapter hosted was our first ever FFA Fall Bash. This night was filled with line dancing, pumpkin carving, coffee from The Bodega, snacks, and so much more. Many members enjoy attending the Buckeye Bash in Indiana at the National FFA Convention, so we thought we should try something similar locally, for the surrounding FFA chapters. We made this event a service project by using one of our members Living to Serve plans from the Washington Leadership Conference this summer! The main purpose was to raise money to provide school supplies to surrounding elementary schools in the area, anyone who attended had an admission fee of $10 or $10 worth of school supplies. Members said thanks to all the students who came from surrounding FFA chapters, we successfully raised $400 worth of school supplies.

The chapter hopes to continue to live up to the FFA Motto, “Learning to Do, Doing to Learn, Earning to Live, Living to Serve.” We are beyond grateful for the support we receive from our community, it always makes us happy to know we are giving back as well!