Chambers County FFA

CHAMBERS COUNTY FFA LIVING TO SERVE

BY JOSHUA BRYAN

Chambers County, Alabama is home to Valley High School, LaFayette High School, W.F. Burns Middle School and John P. Powell Middle School. These schools send students to Inspire Academy, the county's career technical center, to take courses in many career fields, one of the most popular being agriscience.

The Chambers County FFA Chapter at Inspire Academy has grown into the county's largest career technical program. The program was restarted under the leadership of Jordan Harris and Joshua Bryan in the 2016-2017 school year. The first year back in action the FFA Chapter only had 35 members. Throughout the past six years, the FFA Chapter has grown to over 130 members. During this time, the Chapter has won over 24 awards and maintained a 3-star National Chapter designation.

Students enrolled in the agricultural courses may take classes in Horticulture, Greenhouse Management, Intermediate Agriscience, Fundamentals of Agriscience, Advanced Agriscience, Aquaculture, Animal Science, and Small Engines. The Chambers County FFA students manage a

Students enjoy the hands-on aspect of agriscience class. It doesn’t get much more hands-on than handling bees!

1,500-square-foot greenhouse, a three-acre livestock facility, a 2,500-gallon aquaculture system, a ten-hive apiary, along with an agriscience shop facility. The FFA members raise most of the funds that they use for events and trips through plant, goat, and honey sales.

The Chambers County FFA Chapter puts the FFA motto “Learning to Do, Doing to Learn, Earning to Live, Living to Serve," into action by actively caring for animals, producing greenhouse crops, promoting agricultural literacy by holding farm days for fourth-graders, and serving the community through a food drive called “Thanksgiving in a Bag."

For the annual farm day, FFA members interact with fourth-graders from across the county to educate them about the wide variety of agricultural topics and career opportunities.

For the Thanksgiving in a Bag service project, FFA members decide what the typical Chambers County Thanksgiving dinner includes and fill bags with the necessary ingredients to prepare the meal. The Chambers County Young Farmers partner with the FFA to provide hams and turkeys to complete the meal. All together the FFA and Young Farmers fed a total of fifty families a complete dinner during the 2021 holiday season.

Promoting agriculture and creating successful leaders after high school is one of the main driving factors of the program. The Chambers County FFA strives to embody the Mission and Vision of National FFA of “making a positive difference in the lives of students by developing their potential for premier leadership, personal growth and career success through agricultural education."

The Chambers County FFA Chapter hopes to continue to create a legacy of promoting agricultural education, while creating leaders of tomorrow.

Seeing a product from start to finish is very rewarding. Our honey operation offers a “sweet” opportunity for our students to witness from farm to plate. Having livestock on campus gives students a unique learning experience. As you can see, our goats are very photogenic.

Students also participate in less traditional agricultural skills such as ag construction where they learn basic building skills. Here is a beautiful picnic table the students built and finished.

Our students get multiple opportunities to learn about business during our annual plant sale. These are just a few of the beautiful plants our students grow.