Amanda Reid is a 21-year veteran teacher at the Concordia school district in #Agri-Ready Designated Lafayette County. As an agriculture instructor and FFA advisor, Amanda has been utilizing partnerships with the Missouri Farmers Care Drive to Feed Kids and Agriculture Education on the Move™ (Ag Moves™) programs to add value to the student experiences, leadership development and activities the Concordia FFA Chapter implements each year. These programs provide hands-on opportunities for FFA chapters and members who are “learning to do” and “living to serve” their communities. The successes of Amanda and the Concordia FFA chapter are proof of the POWER of partnership with Missouri Farmers Care. 

“Missouri Farmers Care programs are bonus for any FFA chapter,” Amanda said. “They provide financial support, materials and resources, and a great network!” 

With Amanda’s guidance, Concordia FFA members have developed an outstanding repertoire of activities to help address food insecurity in their community. Amanda has used the Missouri Farmers Care’s Drive to Feed Kids FFA Mini-Grant program to support the chapter’s ambitious projects addressing local food insecurity. The chapter’s Back-Snack project provides weekend meals for food insecure students in Concordia schools. When Amanda and her students recognized that the project was not just helping kids, but supporting entire families each weekend, they were inspired to add additional food security projects to their chapter activities. 

“There used to be food drives at the school until we realized that we were inadvertently asking the very students who were food insecure to contribute to food collections,” Amanda said. “A meal packing event is a better way for all students to help fight food insecurity in our community because each student can help through the service of their hands.”

Concordia FFA members lead an annual meal packing event where the entire student body is invited to help pack meals for families in need. Students combine grain or rice, protein and nutrient fortifiers into meals that provide a complete meal for a family of six. During the packing day, Concordia students work as a team to pack more than 30,000 meals. The best part: every meal stays in the community to support neighbors in need. The agriculture department warehouses the meals, distributed through the Back-Snacks program and two community self-service food pantries which the FFA chapter supplies. Community members facing need can pick up necessities that are stocked in part by the FFA chapter.

“I encourage each class to complete a service project. The self-service food pantries are small, enclosed buildings that were built by an agriculture construction class a couple of years ago,” Amanda described.  

Concordia FFA members are not only “living to serve”; they are inspiring their community to serve as well. Since erecting the food pantries, local churches have added two more to the community, making four pantries available for neighbors in need. The chapter receives generous financial support from local businesses to conduct their annual meal packing event.  A local donor provides hams for Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday bundles, another food security project of Concordia FFA. Chapter members apply food science knowledge to fully cook meat and sides delivered to local families at Thanksgiving and Christmas. To maximize the meals provided by the holiday bundles, the chapter includes recipe cards to help families use leftovers.

“If there is a food security need in your community, the application for the Drive to Feed Kids FFA grant is simple to complete. This grant facilitates our projects and helps meet needs in our community,” Amanda said.

A fellow agriculture education instructor encouraged Amanda to sign her chapter up to become Agriculture Education on the Move™ (Ag Moves™) partner educators. Amanda loves to see her agriculture students in action each semester teaching Concordia 3^rd graders. Most of these “student teachers” plan to become agriculture or elementary educators. One of Amanda’s students plans to become a pediatric nurse, and Amanda knows the experience as an educator will benefit her career pathway too. The chapter’s goal is to expand Ag Moves™ to the local private school in the future.  

“I prepped my students to become teachers for the Ag Moves™ lessons, but I was completely sold on the program when I took my students to be trained by the Agriculture Education on the Move™ staff and college mentors,” Amanda recalled. “That training gave my students confidence and allowed them to take ownership of Ag Moves™ as their own.” 

Amanda’s FFA students have learned about themselves, as well as how to communicate and cooperate with 3^rd grade teachers as they have taught 10 STEM-focused lessons covering crops, livestock, soil and water conservation, nutrition, careers in agriculture and more. Lessons align with state learning objectives and provide fun, interactive ways of learning as students complete hands-on activities such as making soybean germination necklaces, corn plastic, butter, feed rations and soil profiles. The FFA members serve as mentors to younger students and make impacts inside and outside of the classroom. The program helps FFA members to grow personally and professionally and adds value to the chapter as well. 

“Our Ag Moves™ student teachers are teaching 3^rd graders that can become my agriculture students within the next several years. The elementary students will remember the Ag Moves™ experience and we will see those students again in high school. And all I need to provide is some heavy whipping cream and a dozen eggs!” Amanda shared, referring to the fact that all non-perishable supplies, materials, and resources for Ag Moves™ are provided at no cost to FFA chapters by the Missouri Farmers Care Foundation.

To hear more from Amanda about Concordia FFA’s successful partnership with Missouri Farmers Care, tune in to the latest episode of the Stand for Ag Podcast.

Amanda and her husband, Garett, are rooted in the Concordia community where they have raised their three kids. They are passionate about production agriculture and teaching others about the importance of agriculture. Amanda is a member of the Missouri Vocational Agriculture Teachers Association, a partner of Missouri Farmers Care.

Missouri Farmers Care is excited to partner with more Missouri FFA Chapters in 2024. FFA chapters can sign up as partners with Agriculture Education on the Move™ at www.agmoves.com. FFA Drive to Feed Kids mini grants are available this spring at www.mofarmerscare.com/drive.