by Kathryn Odgers
In order to welcome new students to the Minarets FFA, the program helps introduce new FFA members by having various workshop activities for Green Hand Week, such as various workshops and Penny Wars.
Initiated by junior Shelby Graff and sophomore Jordan Basila this year, the activity was intended to raise funds for Valley Children's by creating a week-based competition for the whole school to participate in. In every pro-period classroom, students would have the opportunity to donate pennies daily, or any spare change such as nickels and dimes to sabotage the other classroom's scores, in the hopes to win a donut party for their room. The winner would be selected based on the amount of total change per classroom. Ms. Hall’s classroom won the competition with $10 worth in change, 100 pennies, and in total Minarets raised $200 for Valley Children’s! That is 20,000 coins donated in every pro-period class!
Shelby, an executive committee member who was an active part of promoting and in-charge the competition alongside Jordan felt very proud of the amount they raised, saying "Honestly I did not think we were going to get $200, especially with pennies. It was a lot of work to count but it was really worth it and we're going to write a check to the organization". FFA will be donating the check to Valley Children's, a healthcare organization for children.
"When our FFA Community Service team came up with the idea we only had a week to do it" she began, "So we thought no one was really going to do this but were shocked when a lot of people participated. My idea was to raise money for patients, but Jordan thought of the whole competition idea and we sort of combined both of our ideas into what it is now". Baffled by the amount of support the activity funded, Shelby believes they'll do it again as part of Green Hand week next year, or later again this year. The FFA Community Service team comes up with different service ideas to get students involved, hoping to get each student to have twenty-five hours of community service by doing activities such as the Rodeo Clean-up, Penny Wars, and other fun student-based activities. FFA members are involved in lots of activities that take up a lot of school and personal time, so having activities such as Penny Wars is a great fun way to introduce new students to the organization.
The Penny Wars was a great success and they're counting on doing it again next year as well!
--
Never miss an update. Subscribe to our newsletter.