Liberty High School’s FFA program is a part of Liberty that doesn’t get enough recognition and appreciation. Liberty’s FFA program does things from making bouquets for valentines day to selling strawberries and so much more. This year the FFA program tackled yet another LEAD day.
LEAD stands for Liberty Elementary Agriculture Day. On this day, Liberty High School invites 4th-grade students from Grace Miller, M.M. Pierce, H.M. Pearson, and Mary Walter to Liberty to experience the ultimate agricultural experience. This year, 286 4th graders attended LEAD DAY hoping to learn more about agriculture.
Virginia agriculture is such an important thing to learn about. In Virginia, agriculture helps provide over 82 Billion dollars to the state’s economy. Virginia’s agriculture also helps provide over 380,000 job opportunities. This causes over 43 Billion dollars in revenue.
Throughout the day, students visited 29 different different stations led by Liberty High School students. At each station, the kids learned something new about Virginia agriculture. Hands-on activities along with simple visuals helped these students learn so much about agriculture. “I worked at the goat and sheep station. I loved getting the opportunity to help teach the youth about the agriculture industry and hope that one day those students will be a part of it,” stated Junior, Leslie Linton.
One of the fun activities that Liberty had for the students was a petting zoo. The 4th graders were able to pet and play with cows, sheep, goats, and horses. This activity had to be the 4th-grade students’ favorite activity. Liberty was also lucky enough to obtain large agricultural machinery from local farmers that the students were able to look at. This helped students get a great visual of some of the things that farmers use in their daily lives.
Throughout the day, students completed several different project topics ranging from the water cycle, horticulture, woodworking, natural resources, floral design, and metalworking. These projects helped the students learn more about some of the different things you can learn and do in agriculture in a fun, creative way.
At the end of the day, the elementary students enjoyed an intriguing and exciting hayride along with Ice cream that was donated by Moo Thru. Moo Thru’s ice cream is hand-crafted and slow-churned in Remington, Virginia. Using Ice Cream from Moo Thru also helped the students see what some farmers and agricultural workers can make in an exciting and tasty way.
We can’t thank Liberty High School’s FFA program enough for all they do throughout every school year, especially LEAD day. LEAD is such an amazing opportunity to interact with young students and expose them to the importance of Virginia agriculture.
