The fall harvest season means long days in the tractor, cold weather, warm weather, clouds and sun. Over the past 60 years the FFA chapter has had an amazing history towards Camp Courage. The FFA motto is: learning to do, doing to learn, earning to live, living to serve. The end of this saying states “living to serve” is what gives these students that strive to give back to their community.

The corn drive had first started in 1964, when a school went our asking farmers for their corn after a big storm. they went through the fields looking for corn. The first total amount raised was $87 towards Camp Courage. 87$ is what the corn drive had raised for the first year then, the following years that came there were 80 more chapters that have joined the tradition raising over $5.5 million to our camps.

Every fall our FFA members go out to communities asking for a donation or harvested corn, as a part of our annual corn drive.   Students that are available to attend the FFA Corn Drive get antsy as they get a day off of school to get donations. The FFA officers gather a couple weeks before the fall harvest season and they talk about upcoming events in the upcoming months. The topics include, dates for the corn drive, fall leadership day, fruit sales, and CDE teams. The annual Corn Drive raises money towards a place called Camp Courage. Camp Courage is a camp for children and adults with disabilities located in Maple Lake, Mn.

On November 29, I interviewed the head principle Mr. Bergman asking for his opinion on the corn drive. I asked him what his thought about was on our annual FFA corn drive and he stated “I believe it is an awesome experience for our children here at NUHS and its great that we donate to the disabilities camp”. Kids are out collecting just about anything they can donate to Camp Courage. Last year our FFA crew racked up about $14,000. This year we took a very nice jump and boosted up to over $16,000!

I interviewed our FFA advisor Mr. Nelson and asked him what the value and importance of FFA is and he replied saying “our FFA has realized the value and importance of philanthropic importance of raising funds and supporting Camp Courage, that is how our FFA members show they give back to the community”.

Our FFA program overall is a great program that shows that you can give back to your community, and donate to a great camp. The corn drive is only one of our great achievements in FFA. I am a proud FFA member.