Barren County FFA chapter sends supplies to the 623rd

By MICHAEL CRIMMINS
Glasgow News 1

When the 3 o’clock bell rings the outside of Barren County High School is flooded with school buses and cars waiting to pick up the high school students after a day of instruction and classes. While the front of the school is inundated with eager students, numerous members of the local Future Farmers of America — or FFA — chapter gather in the agriculture wing of the school to assemble care packages, blankets and thank you cards.

Mollie Webb, the president of the local chapter, said this service day — which occurs during National FFA Week — brought together some of the roughly 325 FFA members who assembled care packages for the 300 soldiers that were recently deployed to Southwest Asia, craft tie blankets — a blanket made by “laying two layers of fleece fabric together, cutting strips around the sides of the fabric [and] tying those strips together” — for a Louisville children’s hospital and fashion cards expressing their appreciation for the chapter’s advisers.

“As part of FFA week we are having a service day after school with our whole chapter,” Webb said. “We’ve collected donations for the 623rd and we’re going to send those to them overseas, things like beef jerky and that sort of thing. We’re also making tie blankets [and] also we’re going to write thank you cards to our advisers because Kentucky FFA is doing adviser appreciation day.”

The motto of the FFA organization is “Learning to Do, Doing to Learn, Earning to Live, Living to Serve” which is why, according to Webb, the members were provided service points for either their donations or participation in the event. Webb explained that since service was a big tenet of the organization service points “are an indicator of involvement” and can determine whether a members does certain things within the chapter, like attend field trips.