Presidential Candidate Steve Olson, Every FFA Chapter needs a FFA Alumni Affiliate

In 2010, the National FFA Alumni established two priorities for our role in supporting FFA and Ag Education: the first is for every FFA to have an active FFA Alumni affiliate; the second is becoming the leader in advocacy for FFA and Ag Education. This blog will focus on my thoughts for the first priority with the second priority being discussed in an October blog.

A key to the long term success of local ag education programs is community support. The support is built upon meeting the needs of students and the community in the short-term. The best way for ag education to compete for support and resources during tight budgets is to provide a high quality program that meets national curriculum standards. A high quality program provides students with classroom instruction, AND experiential learning (through Supervised Agricultural Experience (SAE)), AND leadership development (FFA). A major strength of agricultural education is applying lessons learned in the classroom to practical situations this enables students to learn on a deeper level.

Personally I believe that every school should have an ag education program. The first step is to strengthen the community support of existing programs. FFA Alumni is in a unique position to reinforce the ag education network by identifying and working with community leaders in neighboring ag ed programs to form alumni affiliates. The role of the National FFA Alumni organization is to provide training and resources to assist local affiliates in working with neighboring programs. State alumni associations are key to working with state ag education and FFA staff to identify programs that may have a more urgent need to build community support. A second phase is for local and state FFA Alumni to look at establishing ag education programs in schools where none currently exist.

Take Home Message:
1. Work with ag educator(s) in a neighboring community to identify a core group (3-10) of supporters to initiate the formation of an alumni affiliate.
2. Access material and resources from state and national FFA Alumni to assist in forming a new affiliate.
3. Serve as mentor for the new affiliate.
4. Establishing new agricultural education programs - Develop a list of neighboring schools and potential supporters (ag/commodity group members, business owners, community leaders etc).

Please contact me with any questions or comments (steve@minnesotaturkey.com)
Thank you and I appreciate your support,
Steve Olson