FFA Inside the Emblem: Marathon

Tell us about your chapter. While we are still growing our program of activities, our members tend to focus on building our community of agricultural roots, focusing on events, like Thank a Farmer and Food for America, and building our Supervised Agricultural Experiences. In the classroom, we are building our class options beginning in sixth grade and have now transitioned from a part-time ag program to a full-time schedule. We are very grateful for the support of our school board and administration as we build our agriculture education and FFA programs.

How does your chapter volunteer in the community throughout the year? We are lucky to come from a community so rooted in agriculture. Our favorite community events include Thank a Farmer and donating a portion of our poinsettias to local nursing homes. We will host a total of four blood drives this school year and have a goal of 80 total donations. The community blood center has been great in making these events easy to host and a huge success.

What fundraisers does your chapter do throughout the year? Which is the most successful? One of our most successful fundraisers is our fruit sale. Along with fruit and nuts we also sell snack sticks and sausage from Custom Meats of Marathon Inc., a local business that also supports our vending machine sales. This year, our members sold nearly $37,000 worth of fruit, nuts and Custom Meats products. We also have a small group of students who run our two vending machines, located in the school. Here we sell Gatorade, Propel, Custom Meats snack sticks and other healthy snacks.

What are the biggest events of the year? Food For America is definitely our biggest event of the year. We have a local farm, Draeger’s Dairy Farm Inc., that hosts our chapter as we invite our fourth-grade classes out to the farm, where we teach them about agriculture. The farm family is amazing in hosting this event and makes sure students are getting the most out of their day on the farm. This year they were able to bring out their biggest equipment, including a sprayer with a 120-foot boom and their Claas Cougar mower, which cuts 46 feet at a time. Inside their newly built robot barn, they also have both sand-bedded stalls and water mat stalls, where we have each fourth grader test out and choose which stall they’d prefer to lie in. One of the student favorites is our ice cream-making station, where our group leaders have double the time with each group to help each fourth grader make themselves a bag of ice cream, give them a tour of the milk house and teach them dairy facts. We also have a very competitive group of FFA members, so another favorite event is the Section 7 volleyball tournament hosted by the Thorp FFA Chapter.

What is unique about your chapter? I like to think there is a lot to be considered unique about our chapter. Along with motivated members who want our program to grow, we have an incredibly supportive administration to back us up. Those two things combined give us endless opportunities to ensure these members are getting just as much as they are giving. Another thing unique to our area is our connection to the ginseng industry. Most of our alumni and many of our current students still work in the ginseng fields.

When was your chapter founded and how has it evolved? Our chapter was founded in 1940. We are working to grow our programs to give our members the best experience and to be a benefit to our community.