From our friends Josh and Scott and the folks with Iowa FFA:
In a normal year, this is the time when Team Ag Ed in Iowa is busy with the final push to prepare for the excitement and pageantry of the Iowa FFA Leadership Conference as students come together to demonstrate their career skills; be recognized for their years of dedication and hard work; and to interact with sponsors and vendors as they prepare for continued educational opportunities and careers in agriculture.
This has not been a normal year! For the first time since World War II, the Iowa FFA Leadership Conference has been cancelled. While we all approach this with heavy hearts, we turn to the FFA Creed which reminds us that we will face joys and discomforts in our own lives and careers. Behind the scenes, the Iowa FFA State Officers and staff are working diligently to explore options to host contests and the required business session when and where feasible. This brings new challenges emotionally and financially, but we are confident in the perseverance of FFA members and their Advisors. We congratulate this year's officer team as they work through those challenges and appreciate their continued dedication to serve the nearly 16,000 FFA members across Iowa.
We also need to a take a moment to recognize each and every one of our friends who are involved in agricultural education at this time. The passion one has to be an Ag teacher comes from being able to make profound differences in the lives of young people. We know that the current school closures have affected you deeply and are proud of the work that each of you continue to do to keep your students connected and to provide learning opportunities for them.
Based on the recommendation of the Iowa Governor's office, the FFA Enrichment Center was closed to outside functions on March 19th. Earlier this week, the Iowa FFA Foundation Board extended this closure to May 4th, with the understanding that if social distancing and group gather limits are extended by the Governor's office that this would be extended as well.
Iowa FFA Foundation and Association staff who are normally housed in offices in the FFA Enrichment Center are currently working remotely, but are still continuing to plan upcoming events, connect with partners and look forward to the day when we can all go back into the office. We cannot begin to thank our partners who have continue to support our mission and been accommodating, as all of us in the Team Ag Ed community work through continuing to provide important programming to students.
Agriculture is an essential industry and as producers prepare for spring we are reminded that the work of feeding the world in a safe and sustainable way goes on. FFA members across the state, continue to work on their Supervised Agriculture Experiences and engage their communities in outstanding areas of service and leadership. We at the Iowa FFA Foundation will continue to work to support those young people as they continue to work, lead and serve!
As we look forward to warmer weather and the end of the quarantine, we are excited to extend the invitation to you to participate in the 25thIowa FFA Foundation Golf Tournament to be held June 18 at Veenker Memorial Golf Course in Ames, Iowa. As we get back to normalcy and all need some fun we hope you will join us to celebrate this milestone. Registration information is available here.
It is anticipated that there may be further changes to FFA activities as we move through May, so we suggest that you keep informed by tuning in to the Iowa FFA Foundation and Iowa FFA Association web pages and Facebook pages. Thank you for your continued support of our mission and all that you do to help in these unprecedented times.