FFA: Inside the Emblem

40 members
Brillion, Wisconsin
Calumet County

Tell us about your chapter. We are a rural school in northeastern Wisconsin. Erica Eickert, our advisor, came back to agriculture in Brillion this year, so we are in a growth phase in the chapter. Our goal for this year is to get students actively involved with all the opportunities FFA has to offer. We have 341 students enrolled at the high school and offer a wide variety of courses in agriculture to our students. Students will grow and manage our school greenhouse this year, have business and industry professionals come in to talk about potential career opportunities, grow lettuce and other produce via our hydroponics and aquaponics systems, and spend time in our school forest learning about our natural resources.

How does your chapter volunteer in the community throughout the year? Each year around the holidays, our chapter “adopts” local families in need to help them have a joy-filled season. We also host “Thank-a-Farmer” day at our local Culvers and provide educational materials and activities to the public while visiting Culvers. We do highway clean-ups and are currently working on planning an agriculture day for younger students in our district.

What fundraisers does your chapter do throughout the year? Which is the most successful? We have two major fundraisers each year. In the fall, we sell fruit, meat, nuts and cheese. In the spring, we have our annual plant sale from our students in our greenhouse class. The fruit sale has been a long-standing tradition in Brillion and is our most successful fundraiser.

What are the biggest events of the year? Each year, we run a bingo night during National FFA Week in which we invite all members of the community and raise money for local places and/or individuals in need. Prizes are donated by local businesses for all in attendance. In the past few years, there have been several hundred members from the community in attendance.

What is unique about your chapter? One thing that stands out is that our FFA advisor was a student in Brillion. Mr. Gordie Gasch was her ag teacher, and he is still very active with our FFA. Each year, Mr. Gasch volunteers many, many hours to coach our poultry career development event team. Brillion FFA has won the state contest in poultry evaluation 19 times, dairy evaluation twice, meat evaluation twice, farm business management three times and market plan four times. We have also represented Wisconsin at the National FFA Convention. We are very blessed to have members of the community use their time and talents to serve our FFA members. This year, we currently have eight members training for the poultry CDE, and our goal is to continue to grow our chapter’s participation and field at least five CDE teams this year at the state event.

When was your chapter founded and how has it evolved? Our FFA chapter was founded in 1940. Like many chapters, it has evolved throughout the years from being all “farm boys” to being a very diverse group of students. In early years, FFA was centered on production agriculture, but currently our chapter has very few students who have lived on a farm their entire life. Sixty percent of our membership is female and about 40% of our membership are first-year members. We fully expect our membership to increase over the next few months. Students involved in agriculture today have many exposures to things like leadership conferences, community service, business and industry tours, leadership development and career development events.