4 Out-of-the-Box Ideas for Your Program of Activities
With National FFA Week celebrations underway this month and spring’s warmer weather just around the corner, it’s a great time to start planning some new events to get your chapter and community involved. We asked representatives from Glencoe-Silver Lake FFA in Minnesota — the 2025 National Model of Excellence winner — for their advice on planning a creative Program of Activities. They emphasized focusing events around the needs of the community and recommended being open to trying new ideas and refining events as needed.
These four programming ideas have become yearly favorites for Glencoe-Silver Lake FFA and help build community within the chapter and beyond.
1. Christmas in Rural America
“We contact local businesses about donations we can give to our local farmers. We wrap them like Christmas presents and include cookies, snacks, gloves, hats and handwarmers, as well as safety materials and mental health materials,” says Anna Siebert, Glencoe-Silver Lake FFA Alumni and past president. “In the winter, it gets dark around 3:30 p.m. here, so seasonal anxiety and depression are a real thing. We give farmers some resources to help.”
2. Farmer Interviews
“Every year we find five or six different farmers within our community and go out and interview them about their operations and how they want to grow it in the future,” says Grady Schuft, Glencoe-Silver Lake FFA chapter president. “We post the interviews on social media and community members can listen to them on a podcast.”
3. Summer Agriculture Tour
“This past summer we took 17 FFA members on a road trip to Nashville to visit different businesses and tour the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, turf grass management area,” says Glencoe-Silver Lake FFA President Samantha Mattson. “The first couple years we stayed in Minnesota and Wisconsin for the tour, but Nashville has such a different variety of agriculture that a lot of our members hadn’t seen before.”
4. Ride Your Tractor (or Dirt Bike) to School Day
“Every year we have a Drive Your Tractor to School Day, but a few years ago we had a student who was sick with cancer. He didn’t have a tractor he was able to drive, so he made his own way by riding his dirt bike. Now it serves as a memorial for him,” Schuft says. He notes that expanding the event also allows more people from all different backgrounds to participate; some students ride lawn mowers and other students help prepare breakfast.
Steps to Success
Visit the National Chapter Award Program webpage to find a list of 2025 finalists and results, as well as the National FFA application center, program handbook, judging opportunities and more.
