FFA: Inside the Emblem

65 members 
Orange City, Iowa
Sioux County

Tell us about your chapter. Holland FFA was chartered in 1965 in Orange City, Iowa. We have been a very active chapter within our community and competing at the local and state levels. This past National FFA Convention, we competed in the national extemporaneous speaking contest as well as the national nursery landscape contest, in which Becky Bos competed. 

How does your chapter volunteer in the community throughout the year? The FFA members devote their time to various community service activities throughout the year, including food drives; Wreaths Across America; helping set up, work during and take down our annual three-day town festival known as Tulip Festival; and our local Sack Pack Program.

What fundraisers does your chapter do throughout the year? Which is the most successful? We only have one fundraiser for the year, which is our annual fruit sales. This fundraiser was just completed, and we sold over $49,500 in items this year. 

What are the biggest events of the year? Our biggest events of the year would be the Iowa FFA State Leadership Conference and Tulip Festival. The state leadership conference is a large competition week for us, as we usually bring around 35 students to compete in various contests in two days, along with supporting our junior and senior members on receiving their state degrees. Tulip Festival is our town’s annual three-day festival where we help set up and take down all the bleachers, decorations and parade route materials. We also assist during the festival by driving floats, keeping the streets clean, picking up horse manure during the parade and helping with horse-drawn tours. Before the festival even begins, we help construct and fix up the wooden decorations needed by the town.

What is unique about your chapter? Our chapter is named Holland FFA because we are in Holland Township. We have also really ramped up our contest participation and have been extremely successful the last few years with advancing to the state level in many of our contests.

When was your chapter founded and how has it evolved? Our chapter was chartered in 1965 with Joe Weed as the adviser. We have had five advisers since then, with our current adviser being Mrs. Cleveringa.