blue jackets. bright futures! winter 2014

Blue Jackets. Bright Futures! 1 WINTER 2014

But if the organization had been available, Donna is

sure she and her sister would have worn the blue jacket with pride.

So it’s no surprise that when it came time to select an organization in which to invest some of their late par-ents’ funds, they chose the Na-tional FFA Foundation. Their father George R. Rue was a fourth generation farmer and, as such, he worked tirelessly to

promote the advancement of farmland preservation and soil conservation around his home.Now, thanks to the generous $170,000 George R. and Viola W. Rue Foundation Endow-

ment gifted to the national foundation by their daughters, locals in that New Jersey farming community can reap the rewards for years to come.

The endowment is set up so that youth and alumni active in the Allentown FFA can be awarded scholarships to colleges, technical institutes and other continuing education pro-grams. In addition, the Allentown FFA Alumni Affiliate will receive a yearly stipend to assist in student and affiliate expenses, such as jackets and travel, as well as assist in community education.

“It is our hope this will also increase communication and interaction between national, the state and local chapters while increasing awareness within the agricultural community of the many opportunities offered by FFA,” Donna said. Ryan Gallagher, the national foundation’s director of individual giving and major gifts, says this gift is unlike any other. “A six-figure en-dowment of this type will have a great impact, but what makes it unique is that it’s a bridge from us to the state and local levels. It will directly benefit at the local level—in Allentown—even though we steward it from the national level.”

Keeping the Funds Close to Home By Jami Stall

INSIDE THIS ISSUE:• Two FFA Chapters Serve Communities

• Major Gifts Take FFA to Next Level

• Leadership Matching Challenge

Continued on page 2

WINTER 2014

Analysts forecast that the world’s population will grow to nine billion

people by 2050. To keep up with the global need to fight hunger and prepare for the expected population explosion, agriculture needs educated, skilled and passionate people dedicated to sustain-ability.

Today’s students are answering that call, evidenced by an explosion in FFA membership throughout the United States, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands in the past year.

FFA Membership Explodes to

Record Level

With 103,379 members, Texas FFA Association added more members than any other state.

www.FFA.org/donate

From left: Ryan Gallagher, Donna Rue, Lori Rue and Dwight Armstrong

Growing up on a family farm in Allentown, N.J., sisters Donna and Lori Rue had agriculture and farming practically woven into their DNA. Though they showed dairy cows and competed in cooking and sewing competitions through 4-H, FFA wasn’t an option. “When I was in school, girls weren’t allowed in FFA,” Donna says. “But now boys and girls can join, and they don’t even necessarily have to be raised on a farm to be in it. There are so many other aspects of FFA for them to learn.”

2 Blue Jackets. Bright Futures!

bers—Eliza Hershberger, Hannah Davis and Katie Bendickson—each raised groups of chickens for six weeks, assisted by a $3,000 Rural Youth Development grant to the chap-ter that focused on addressing hunger in a year-long initiative. At maturity, the chickens were butchered locally at a reduced cost at King and Son’s Poultry Services before being donated.

All told, the chickens produced 564 pounds of meat for the shelter to serve those in need.

“We rarely receive donations of fresh meat, so this is a real treat,” Fawnda Cress, the shelter grant coordinator, said.

In July, the largest wildfire in Washington history struck the state. One town—Pateros, Wash.—took on extensive damage. That’s when the Battle Ground FFA chapter went into action to help Pateros, a community more than five hours away.

After putting the word out through so-cial media, the FFA chapter began collecting items. Battle Ground totaled 66 hours of volunteer time and donated the equivalent of 334 meals to those in need.

The FFA Hunger Heroes Challenge is part of the National FFA Organization’s “Feeding Our World — Starting At Home”

FFA Membership Explodes to Record Level

Two FFA Chapters Serve Communities in Acts of Service

It’s no secret that FFA members live to serve. Here are two examples of FFA chap-

ters that did just that for the FFA Hunger Heroes Challenge, a national, year-long pro-gram that donated one million meals across the country.

The Family Abuse Shelter of Miami Coun-ty (Ohio) provides 24/7 support to those in the community suffering from abuse and homelessness. It operates solely on grants and donations.

FFA members at the Miami East-MVCTC FFA Chapter in Troy, Ohio, made helping the shelter a priority in a way they are uniquely qualified—by growing food that could be donated.

Three Miami East-MVCTC FFA mem-

Continued from page 1

FFA members help fight hunger and collect items for those in need in their communities.

2013-14 national FFA officers accept CF Industries’ $600,000 donation to support excellence in farmer education and fertilizer best management practices. (Photo: Jack Conroy)

WINTER 2014

Membership in FFA today stands at an all-time high of 610,240 students. Member-ship increased by more than 30,500 dur-ing the 2013-14 school year. The number of new, local FFA chapters throughout the country grew to 7,665.

“FFA, through agricultural education, is preparing our youth to ensure the secu-rity of our country’s food, fiber and natu-ral resources for years to come,” National FFA Organization Chief Executive Officer Dr. Dwight Armstrong said. “Through real-world experiences, the nation’s agriculture teachers are helping students develop the technical knowledge, skills and problem-solving capabilities to be the industry’s lead-ers of tomorrow. FFA members will be to-morrow’s advocates for agriculture.”

With 103,379 members and 1,021 chap-ters, the Texas FFA Association added more members than any other state. California, with 76,470 members, is the country’s second-largest FFA association, followed by Georgia with 37,698 members, Missouri with 25,935 members and Oklahoma with 25,561 members.

on the local, state and national levels,” Todd Greenwood, National FFA Foundation direc-tor of corporate contributions, said. “This kind of support allows FFA to achieve our vision of growing talented young leaders, building strong communities and strength-ening American agriculture by delivering our mission.”

CHS, a global agribusiness involved in en-ergy, grains and foods owned by U.S. farm-ers, ranchers and cooperatives, announced a substantial, multi-year gift to the national foundation. The gift totals $1.5 million over a three-year period and is intended to sup-port FFA, the National Teach Ag Campaign and Curriculum for Agricultural Science Edu-cation™ (CASE).

The agreement also allocates funds to the National FFA Foundation to promote three

proficiency areas (agricultural processing, diversified crop production and environ-mental science and natural resources man-agement), the Environmental Science and Natural Resources Career Development Event and more.

CF Industries, a longtime FFA supporter, announced a $600,000 donation to the na-tional foundation to support agricultural ed-ucation. Tony Will, CF Industries’ president and chief executive officer, said, “This is a first-of-its-kind undertaking for our industry, and we are pleased to partner with Chevrolet in support of America’s future farmers.”

The partnership between CF Industries and Chevrolet involved the sale of carbon reduction credits to the automaker, a deal made possible by CF Industries’ commit-ment to reducing its greenhouse gas emis-

Four Major Corporate Gifts Take FFA to Next Level

www.FFA.org/donate

Continued on page 4

Recent commitments from four major compa-nies to the National FFA Foundation have re-

sulted in significant impact to FFA members and agricultural education.

“With corporate philanthropic support, FFA members are afforded the opportunity to thrive

WINTER 2014 3 Blue Jackets. Bright Futures!

sions in 2008. Chevrolet purchased the credits through its voluntary Carbon Reduc-tion Initiative that retires the credits’ use. The proceeds of the sale were donated to FFA.

Growth Energy, a company that repre-sents the producers and supporters of etha-nol, recently announced support of national FFA and agricultural education with a multi-year sponsorship, a first-time gift to the or-ganization from the company.

In addition to student and teacher work-shops at this year’s national convention and expo, Growth Energy will help support the Teach Ag campaign and CASE. Also in-cluded in the gift is support for the national organization’s online personalized career ex-ploration and development resources called My Journey (formerly known as AgCN). Support for Washington Leadership Confer-ence, an annual event focused on develop-ing students’ leadership skills and service to others, is also included in the sponsorship.

“Growth Energy is thrilled to help spon-sor several important programs for FFA, in-cluding expanded opportunities to continue to educate FFA members on critical issues such as the important role biofuels and energy play in American agriculture,” Tom Buis, the chief executive officer of Growth Energy, said. Ultimately, what this comes down to is investing in our most valuable resource, tomorrow’s leaders of American agriculture.”

RFD-TV has committed to a five-year sponsorship with FFA that provides cash and in-kind support valued at $5 million over five years. It is just one of many ways the company has supported FFA during their 25-year relationship, providing oppor-tunities to members and helping grow FFA and agricultural education.

“RFD-TV is so proud to be able to ex-pand our support of FFA,” Patrick Gottsch, founder and chief executive officer of RFD-TV, said.

Throughout the past, RFD-TV has been an important media partner with the National FFA Organization.

“This new five-year commitment will al-low us to plan and build on our momen-tum to better serve FFA members, agricul-ture teachers and FFA alumni through the weekly ‘FFA Today’ shows on Rural Media Group’s growing television and radio prop-erties. It is RFD-TV’s goal to reconnect city with country again, and our long-term part-nership with FFA is an important link with these efforts.”

the local, state and national level,” Todd Greenwood, the National FFA Foundation director of corporate contributions, said. “Support of the FFA mission allows a bright-er future for agricultural education and FFA through teacher acquisition and reten-tion, curriculum development and so much more.”

Past National Officers Launch Matching Funds Challenge

By Michael Lotspeich

Past national officer teams reunited recently at the 87th National FFA Convention & Expo.

Leadership Matching Challenge Raises the Bar

In case you missed the memo, membership is at an all-time high in the National FFA

Organization And that’s good news for practically every aspect of the organization—but especially for the Leadership Matching Challenge program.

Ryan Gallagher, director of individual giving and major gifts of the National FFA Foundation, says that making a donation to the national foundation before year’s end will mean more than ever before.

“Now we have more members to support. More jackets to help provide for kids. And possibly more dollars than we’ve ever had from people who have never given before,” Gallagher says. “But as we continue to grow, so does our need for financial assistance to support the mission and serve FFA members.”

Gallagher anticipates the Leadership Matching Challenge to benefit from the increased membership in a big way. “As a

Continued on next page

Out of the millions [of FFA members], only 522 have had the opportunity to serve as a

National FFA Officer,” expressed Rick Malir, the 1985-86 national FFA president, during a recent national officer reception hosted by the National FFA Foundation at the 87th National FFA Conven-tion & Expo.

Each year the National FFA Organization elects a six-member youth officer team. These members travel more than 300 days of the year, putting on leadership workshops, participating in busi-ness and industry visits and meeting FFA members across the country.

One of the benefits of serving as a national offi-cer is a scholarship for service in an amount set an-nually by the board of directors. Over the past de-cade, however, there has been a significant decline in funding and today’s national officers receive less

scholarship support than ever before—$5,000 each year.Four generous past national officers—Malir, Mark Timm, Elin Miller and Corey Rosenbusch—

are going all out to issue the Past National Officer Challenge. “This year,” Malir clarifies, “and every year going forward [members of the National FFA Officer Team] will receive no less than $10,000 each year.”

This team of funders will personally match the first $60,000 given, dollar-for-dollar, by past national officers—yielding a total of $120,000. The group has a short-term goal of sustaining the current level of funding (thus lessening the costs for the national organization) and a long-term sustainability goal of creating a $10 million National Officer Experience Endowment.

“The Past National FFA Officer Challenge presented by Rick Malir is an example of the leader-ship that a national officer exemplifies not only during their year of service but through their life-time,” Dr. Dwight Armstrong, the chief executive officer of the national FFA, said. “Outstanding contribution efforts are fair recognition not only of the National FFA Officer Team’s efforts but the National FFA Organization as a whole.”

By Jami Stall

www.FFA.org/donate

4 WINTER 2014

Blue Jackets. Bright Futures!

Blue Jackets. Bright Futures!

Molly Ball, PresidentMball@FFA.org |317-802-4357

Todd Greenwood, Director Corporate ContributionsTGreenwood@FFA.org |317-802-4361

Ryan Gallagher, DirectorIndividual Giving and Major GiftsRGallagher@FFA.org|317-802-4297

Blue Jackets. Bright Futures!

National FFA FoundationP.O. Box 68960, 6060 FFA DriveIndianapolis, IN 46268-0960

www.FFA.org/donate

first-time donor, if you make a gift of any amount, your entire gift will be doubled—matched dollar for dollar—but even as a renewing donor, if you increase your gift amount above your last annual giv-ing total, your increased amount will be matched.”

The Leadership Matching Challenge was established by generous dona-tions from those on the Individual Giv-ing Council. They initially gave a pool of $300,000 to be used over the course of three years toward the matching dollars program. However, Gallagher said do-nors were so pleased to have their contri-butions doubled, in many instances, that the $300,000 matching fund was deplet-ed in a little more than a year and a half.

“That’s a great problem to have, but the group went back to the drawing board and started working on it again,”

Gallagher says. “When the people on the other boards heard about this, they all jumped in to help.”

To advance the program’s effective-ness, this year the National FFA Board of Directors, National FFA Foundation Board of Trustees and the National FFA Foundation Sponsors’ Board joined the Individual Giving Council to increase the pool to $400,000 worth of matching funds.

“Our goals for 2015 are to continue to bring in new dollars but also to grow the dollars that we had,” Gallagher says. “We’re at a critical shortage of ag teachers, and we know that FFA doesn’t exist without teachers and advisors in the classroom. So another challenge for us is to help increase the number of ag teachers.”

Leadership Matching Challenge Raises the Bar Continued from page 3platform that is compelling students to under-

stand the issues and effects of hunger.Several sponsors graciously assist FFA in these

efforts, including Land O’ Lakes, Inc., RAM Trucks, Monsanto, Nationwide Foundation, Elanco and Tractor Supply Co.

Two FFA Chapters Serve Communities in Acts of Service

Continued from page 2