SAE for All Opens the Door for Every FFA Member
The values of the National FFA Organization include premier leadership, personal growth and career success. A key part to all three aspects is a Supervised Agricultural Experience (SAE).
A program called SAE for All ensures that all members have access to opportunities and resources so they can kickstart their own project.
“SAE for All is the delivery method to ensure that every single student in every ag program across the country has access to an SAE and has access to our high quality career-ready skills that they need to be successful in their future,” says SAE for All program specialist Breanna Pastir.
SAEs allow students to have a different approach to agricultural education and gain hands-on experiences, while familiarizing themselves with agricultural work.
Currently, only three types of SAEs were recognized for the National FFA SAE Award Program: Placement/Internship, Entrepreneurship/Ownership and Research. In 2027, however, the program will mirror SAE for All and permit School-Based Enterprise and Service-Learning SAEs to be eligible for the award program.
“I’m really excited about the opportunities that are going to be offered to students through our school-based enterprises and also service learning because they allow for maybe a different demographic of students than we were meeting with our other SAE types,” Pastir says.
Some students have pursued these types of projects long before they were considered for recognition.
“Students started the FFA to Haiti project back in 2012 and went to Haiti for a couple of years, taking students from all over the United States to Haiti to build safety homes, food relief and agricultural education to Haiti,” says Melanie Bloom, an agricultural education instructor from Iowa. “That was probably the coolest project I’ve ever watched kids do.”
These projects not only allow students to gain experience while they are in FFA, but gain skills that will better prepare them for their future careers.
“A lot of the skills I learned through [my SAE] of just determination even with setbacks is something I’ll totally use in the future,” says Fishers FFA member Connor Lawrence.
For students and advisors interested in School-Based Enterprise and Service-Learning SAEs, resources can be found at SAEforall.org.
