Around the nation, FFA members are celebrating National FFA Week, February 21-28. Layten Sobieski, the state sentinel on the Wisconsin State FFA Officer Team, talked about his first FFA experience.
“My FFA experience started when I was a freshman in high school by simply taking an agriculture course. While having an agriculture background in the ag industry, I was always looking for something more, and that’s when the Creed Speaking Contest was placed in front of me, just two weeks before the competition by my ag teacher, and since then, FFA has changed my future and my outlook. I’ve been to several conferences and competed in several different events since then, and truly, FFA has changed my life.”
He said one of the many functions of National FFA is to prepare students to take skilled jobs across the U.S. agricultural sector.
“The National FFA Organization is developing students through community leadership, personal growth, and career success, all through agriculture education, right? So, career development events are something that the FFA offers that allows students to get those hands-on readiness experiences and professional skills, so they can participate in a Supervised Agriculture Experience, which also allows them to give them skills for their future careers. And we’re really focusing on preparing students for their future, whatever that may look like, whether that’s going into the agriculture industry or not, and how they can become more involved.”
Sobieski said it’s still a popular misconception about FFA that you have to be a farm kid to participate, which hasn’t been true for a long time.
“First, the National FFA Organization is truly open to anyone, and we actually changed our name way back in the 1900s from Future Farmers of America to the National FFA Organization to bring together a community and really to allow everyone to be a part of this organization, right? Because we are building the next generation of leaders who have changed the world, right? And we’re offering that through community leadership, personal growth, and career success, and students can apply those skills to any pathway that they choose, whether that’s a career pathway, a public pathway, whatever that may look like. And now, FFA is open through fifth grade and up, as long as they’re enrolled in an agriculture education course. And this is very new, but the organization is working to reach students earlier, to help them prepare for their futures, to allow them to become stronger leaders within their communities.”
For more information on National FFA Week, visit the FFA website here.