From left to right: FFA Officers Chantal Monnier, Katlynn Fuller, Estee Miller, Kalyn Strahley, Paige Fitzwater, Kourtney Thomas, Courtney Luderman, Austin Howell, Hannah Farr
By: the Paulding FFA Reporter
The Paulding FFA Chapter has seen significant growth in its membership, currently there are 102 members. The Paulding FFA Officer for 2016-2017 consists of nine very active leaders. They are as follows; President: Hannah Farr, Vice President: Chantal Monnier, Secretary: Paige Fitzwater, Treasurer: Estee Miller, Reporter: Katlynn Fuller, Sentinel: Kourtney Thomas, Student Advisor: Austin Howell, Historian: Courtney Luderman, and Parliamentarian: Kalyn Strahley.
They have two FFA advisors, Staci Miller, teacher and Advisor and Brett Foster, Advisor.
We participate in many of the Career Development Events (CDES) that the FFA has to offer, such as Parliamentary Procedure, Food Science, Job Interview, Milk Quality, Poultry Judging, Ag Communications and Soil Judging. The Paulding FFA Chapter has received banners at the state level for two consecutive years. The poultry team placed 4th in 2015, and 5th in 2016 at the state level. We have also recently received a banner for the hard work of our Milk Quality team placing 5th at the state level. The Paulding FFA Chapter received a bronze rating on the National Chapter Award for the 2015-2016 school year, this was a huge honor for our chapter.
The chapter has a variety of different fundraisers throughout the year to help raise funds for our active chapter. Our largest fundraiser is fruit sales with the chapter selling over $32,000 worth of fruit. Another fundraiser is our strawberry sales in the spring.
The Paulding FFA Alumni Chapter is very active and the chapter teams up with them throughout the year on many different projects and events. The Paulding FFA Alumni runs a sausage stand during the Paulding County Fair, and during the county’s Flat Rock Fall Festival. Our members volunteer and help out during these events. The funds raised from these events are used for our scholarship fund, helping to send members to National and State FFA Convention as well as CDE’s. The Paulding FFA has a greenhouse, where our greenhouse classes prepare and start a variety of different vegetables, flower and plants in the greenhouse to sell during our annual plant sale. The Alumni helps to support this by volunteering to run the plant sale and assist students with materials needed to grow the plants.
The Paulding FFA believes that community service is very important. Throughout the year the chapter volunteers a tremendous amount of time in our community. They help with the Habitat for Humanity 5k, adopt a family a for Christmas, ringing the bell for the Salvation Army,Relay for Life, as well various other community service projects.
Every Spring, the chapter holds a petting zoo where elementary students come to the ag shop and learn about the different animals and participate in an agricultural activity. The goal of the petting zoo is to raise awareness about agriculture and livestock in our community. This year the chapter’s theme is to have a RECORD YEAR! They hope to accomplish this through their classroom work, CDE contests and community service. The Paulding FFA Chapter strives to grow and spread the leadership of FFA throughout Paulding County.
