During COVID-19 Paulding FFA Members are “Living to Serve”

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FFA Staff: Pictured here are various Paulding staff members who are helping to sort the hygiene items to be disbursed. Everyone is helping to provide all we can for our students!
FFA Members: Pictured here are FFA members Hailey and Kyle Harris after they had assembled the hygiene kits for their mom Nicole, who works in the school cafeteria to take them to the school for the weekly distribution of meals and hygiene kits.

By: Staci Miller, Paulding Ag Education Teacher

Since school has not been in session since mid- March that hasn’t stopped the Paulding FFA Chapter from helping to serve our members and help our community by focusing on the FFA Motto: Learning to Do, Do to Learn, Earning to Live and Living to Serve. In February, the Paulding FFA Chapter held a hygiene drive in the high school to collect items for the creation of the Panther’s Care Closet during National FFA week. The chapter was able to collect over 1600 items from the Paulding High School student body to start the care closet. The chapter also received a “Living to Serve” grant from National FFA to get this program started for the school district. Little did we know that COVID-19 had another plan with school being shut down till May 1st, our members decided to start the hygiene closet in March when school was shutdown. Through collaboration with the Paulding staff and administration the Paulding FFA started its hygiene bags to help the many families in Paulding struggling due to COVID-19. Each week at Paulding and Oakwood a five day supply of meals is handed out to children age 1-18. In conjunction with the meals the Panther’s care closet established by the Paulding FFA is having the Paulding Staff hand out hygiene kits to families who would like to receive them.  So far, the Paulding FFA has went through over 2000 hygiene items and they will continue to have these hygiene bags available to families until May 1st or as long as the stay put order in still in place. This project was infused into the agriculture classroom by striving to follow the FFA Motto and our members gained communication skills as well as leadership skills that promote collaboration with other organizations for the betterment of our school and community. We are living to serve our school district and community by getting involved to fill a definite need. The students developed a vision for the program and through collaboration and identification of stakeholders developed a plan and implemented the Panther’s Care Closet in a time of great need. Service learning will not only provide our students with the fundamental life skills but promote the overall development contributing members of our society. The Paulding FFA wants to tell everyone to stay safe and we look forward to seeing our members soon!