LIVINGSTON MANOR — In November of 2022, Livingston Manor’s FFA Chapter became official. Since then, we as an FFA have become both a team and family working hard to learn more about the agricultural world and to do good for our community. 

The LMCS community garden has been a big project that has really impacted our school in a great way. All of the plants that are grown in the garden are planted and maintained by our school’s FFA and ag science class. As a result, we have more fresh foods at lunch,  and we also get to play in the dirt right here at school. Not only has the FFA worked hard in our school’s community garden to grow fresh fruits and vegetables, our FFA collaborated with the kitchen staff at LMCS to turn our own fresh tomatoes, peppers, onions and herbs into fresh salsa for our school’s lunch and salad bar.   The garden always allows us to learn many of the amazing things that come with the agricultural world right here at Livingston Manor, while also providing for our school. 

We have also been able to have the opportunity to bring agriculture to young minds in our school. The FFA visited the elementary classes with two things in mind, inspiring the children and teaching them how to plant their own seeds and produce. We showed the little kids how to plant and pot seeds and plants, taught them about the specific plants they were helping to plant, and educated them on techniques to help the plants thrive and have long life spans. We also had the chance to bring a fitness and agricultural opportunity to elementary students. At a back to school event, we helped students use our blender bike to whip fresh strawberries into healthy and tasty smoothies. 

One great thing we have been able to do is bring creativity to our FFA, while also building friendships with our fellow classmates and people in the community. For two years in a row, each December we work on a holiday pop up sale. Last year, we spent time making homemade soaps and candles to sell. With help from the art department, we were also able to sell one of a kind, beautiful colorful soap dishes that were a huge hit in our school. People from all over the community visited our pop up sale, buying soaps, dishes and candles to give as gifts for the holidays while also getting to meet our FFA members.

Once the holiday pop-up sale was over last year, the members of FFA realized that we had become very close due to the hard work that we had put in during the preceding months making the soaps and candles and we decided that we would like to expand our FFA program. We recruited and gained several new members this year who are eager to learn about FFA, to participate in fun activities, and to learn more about the importance of agriculture. Our hard work has helped people in our community and we hope to find new ways to serve our community. 

The Livingston Manor FFA is almost like a family to its members. We are extremely grateful to our teacher, Mrs. Fridenstine, for fighting to bring FFA to our school. 

For more stories on the good deeds of the FFA’s around the county, please check out pages 4A and 5A in this edition.