FFA: Inside the Emblem - Holdingford

50 members
Holdingford, Minnesota
Stearns County

Tell us about your chapter. The Holdingford FFA Chapter is located in central Minnesota about 20 minutes northwest of St. Cloud. We have about 50 members, grades 7-12. Students compete in a wide variety of contests from forestry, ag mechanics and floriculture to ag sales and veterinary science.

How does your chapter volunteer in the community throughout the year? Members volunteer in the community in a variety of ways. In the summer, students sell peaches to raise money for the Stearns County Sheriff’s Office to help support the purchase, training and everyday support of bloodhounds used for scent tracking. In the fall, members raise money to purchase authentic farm toys to donate to Toys for Tots. They also adopt a highway south of town to keep our local environment clean.

What fundraisers does your chapter do throughout the year? Which is the most successful? The main fundraisers for our chapter would be fruit sales in the winter and our greenhouse plant sale in the spring. Both are very successful in raising money for our chapter. We were able to increase our greenhouse production this year due to a brand-new greenhouse structure fundraised for and built by our alumni.

What are the biggest events of the year? Our biggest event of the year would have to be the Veterans’ Day program. Officers invite and welcome local veterans Nov. 11 for a ceremony with our grade 7-12 students. Officers also thank the veterans by gifting them a memorial coin in a wooden display, handmade by Holdingford students.

What is unique about your chapter? Our chapter is unique because we have a deep familial connection to FFA. Many of our students have parents and grandparents who were not only active in FFA but were here in Holdingford specifically. We have a very tight-knit community, and many students stay local after graduation. Our school also plants, cares for and harvests vegetables for lunches at our school. Students come in during the summer to water, weed and pick the vegetables, among other garden-related tasks. We produce hundreds and hundreds of pounds of vegetables for the lunch ladies.

When was your chapter founded, and how has it evolved? To my knowledge, our chapter was chartered in 1939, closed, and then rechartered in 1969. Our chapter has evolved a lot over the years, going from a 2-person department down to one for many years, and it is now back up to two. We are currently in an era of expansion, as we welcomed seventh- and eighth-grade students starting in the fall of 2022 with the introduction of a new middle school agriculture class. Our students compete in Career Development Events, but members are learning and growing in new directions as they try new adventures such as Supervised Agricultural Experience and Leadership Development Events.