A few years ago, one of my friends from my home chapter found himself in this situation while we were doing a recruitment presentation to a class of eighth-graders. He was doing a great job explaining that one of the benefits of joining FFA is all the friends you can make.
He went on and on, conveying his excitement about his FFA friends, but wasn’t quite sure how to end his slide so he said, “Ok yeah… so friends… those are good to have.”
Everyone burst out laughing (he laughed along with us), and we went on with the presentation. After that, his remark became a running inside joke in our chapter, not only because it was funny but because it was true.
Ask a room full of FFA members what their favorite part of FFA is and one answer you’ll be sure to hear over and over again is the people you meet and the friends you make. At this point in my FFA career, this couldn’t be more true for me. I’ve met some of my closest friends through FFA that I know will be an important part of my life long after I take off the blue corduroy for the last time.
However, I didn’t always have this great experience with connections in FFA. During my freshman year of high school, I joined FFA not really knowing what I was getting myself into. At all my chapter’s recruitment activities, the upperclassmen told me about all the friends they had made in FFA. This sounded great, but a few months into my FFA membership, I was skeptical. I didn’t feel like I had made any new friends. That all changed when my advisor convinced me to attend Greenhand Fire Up.
While participating in the different sessions that night, I experienced my first real connection with FFA. I was so impressed by the facilitators’ energy, but I was also a little overwhelmed. As a freshman, I was very shy and awkward, so I sat quietly in workshops and observed what was happening around me. When everyone made their way to the cafeteria, I made a beeline for the other members of my chapter, relieved to be around familiar faces. My advisor, however, had other plans for us.
She gathered us around a table as we ate our post-workshop pizza and told us, “I’ve got a challenge for you all. The person from our chapter to make the most new friends and take selfies with them will get a prize from me at the end of the night.”
Upon hearing this, my first reaction was that she was crazy.
“There is NO way I’m going to run around taking selfies with completely random people!!!” I thought, “I’m just an awkward freshman, this is so out of my element…”
As I stood by our table, panicking a little bit inside, I watched the other members from my chapter begin taking selfies with everyone in sight. The more I watched, the more I realized: it didn’t look scary; it looked fun! Members from across the district and officers from across the state began to join in, so I decided I could too. For the next few minutes, I ran around the cafeteria, laughing, snapping an absurd amount of selfies and making friends with a room full of strangers.
Now, I understand that every FFA event doesn’t end in a giant selfie war, but the opportunities to make connections are endless! It can be as simple as personally inviting younger members or potential members to chapter meetings and events and making the effort to get to include them. Or it could look like attending events above the chapter level. Greenhand Fire Ups, National Convention, and the Ignite, Amplify and Transform conferences are all coming up soon. Talk to your advisor to register and when you attend challenge yourself to meet five new friends at each event.
You never know when you could make a new friend that will turn into a best friend, encounter an officer or older member that will inspire you to explore new levels of leadership or meet an adult that could introduce you to an internship or job opportunity. FFA offers us countless opportunities to connect. Take advantage of them. And when all else fails, just remind yourself: friends, those are good to have.
Your Friend,
Grace Long
2019-2020 State Reporter
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