Chapter Connect Partners Reinforce Relationships
The National FFA Convention & Expo brings in over 70,000 members from across the country each year and allows people from different states and backgrounds to meet.
The Chapter Connect program enhances these interactions as it pairs 32 chapters throughout the nation to foster connections before and during the convention, while setting them up for lasting relationships after convention.
“FFA is a premier leadership organization that focuses on career success, personal growth and leadership development,” Chapter Connect program manager Lloyd Daley-Graham says. “Chapter Connect is an opportunity to enhance all of those things and it’s enhanced by creating more of a relationship-based human experience that allows people to engage about and across differences.”
Through this program, chapters also receive financial support to attend the national convention, which allows students to attend that otherwise would not have been able to.
“We would have barely been able to send the competition team, but because of [Chapter Connect] we were able to send the entire officer team and the competition team,” says Jared Ricks from the Campo Verde FFA in Arizona.
Members are not the only ones who benefit from this program. Advisors are able to implement what they have learned through their connections in their classrooms.
“I think it’s really interesting because we get to learn about agriculture in different parts of the country and how different it really is,” says Shawn Martin, the advisor of the Bluejacket FFA in Oklahoma. “Now I get to learn about that, take that back home and [show that] this is what they do there and I can contact these [new connections] and they can help me out.”
Ultimately, the students emphasize the importance of their connections and urge all chapters to apply for the program.
“It’s a great experience. It will help everyone in your chapter move out of their shell,” says Axel Davis of the Wynne FFA Chapter in Arkansas. “Nationals is such a big place; you cannot just do everything by yourself. So having another chapter to do things with and explore Nationals in Indianapolis, it’s a very big deal,” adds Annie Mitchell of Wynne’s connected chapter, the Fontainebleau FFA in Louisiana.
Is your chapter interested in participating in the Chapter Connect program? Learn more about the National FFA Belonging and Engagement program, which Chapter Connect is a part of.
