OFI 1961: Growing Thousands Of Pounds Of Vegetables For Charity | FFA SAE Edition | Lauren Schroeder | Calamus-Wheatland High School FFA

Lauren Schroeder is an amazing humanitarian, farmer and FFA student. During Covid, when she was in the 8th Grade, she started volunteering in her community and made an observation. She noticed that in the meals available to people there was no fresh produce. The timing of this observation coincided with her beginning her FFA career and needing to develop a supervised agricultural experience.

Lauren decided to plant a garden and donate 100% of the production to those in need. A very benevolent SAE was born. Starting her 9th grade year, she planted 1/2 acre with a variety of vegetables, ultimately donating them to multiple different organizations around her community. During the summer between her sophomore and junior year she increased her production to 1 acre and donated over 7,000 lbs of vegetables. She has two summers left while she is in high school FFA and wants to increase production this year to 1.5 acres and finally 2 acres with a total of 20,000 lbs of vegetables. It is an unbelievable story and goal, but she has proven that she can do it, and there is no doubt that she will!

SUPERVISED AGRICULTURAL EXPERIENCE: Vegetable Production

HIGH SCHOOL: Calamus-Wheatland High School; Wheatland, Iowa

MASCOT: Warriors

FFA ADVISOR: Jenna Kingsley

CONTACT INFORMATION FOR LAUREN SCHROEDER:

Click on the picture below to be taken to the Calamus-Wheatland High School Ag. Department’s website:

Lauren’s FFA Advisor’s Email Address: jkingsley@cal-wheat.net

Calamus-Wheatland High School’s Telephone Number: 563-246-2222

FFA LINKS:

National FFA Organization

Supervised Agricultural Experiences (SAE’s)

Support FFA

Donate to FFA – One way that FFA students are able to start small businesses is through an FFA grant of $1,000. In 2014, 141 FFA students received these grants. With your donations, more students can get this head start – pay it forward.

REASONS TO DONATE TO FFA:

Only 2% of Americans grow and raise most of the food and livestock consumed by the other 98% as well as the rest of the world. FFA is providing the needed education, training and resources to Americans that will carry that torch forward and insure that America continues to have inexpensive, quality food.
Rural Communities will rely on entrepreneurship in the future for population growth and job creation. The FFA is a major catalyst to that entrepreneurial growth.
Farmers, ranchers and those working in agriculture give the rest of America incredible amounts of freedom because the search for food is as simple as going to the grocery store:

“Because American farmers are able to provide for so many of us, they give more and more of us the freedom to pursue goals and livelihoods beyond growing the food we need to survive.”

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack