On February 24, the Future Farmers of America (FFA) chapter hosted their annual teacher appreciation breakfast, serving and acknowledging staff members.

“As the students, we invite our staff and thank them as they are coming in, and the parents are the ones cooking and serving,” FFA student advisor Austin Hunt, said. “We are very thankful to have such amazing parents that will come out and help cook for us.”

A coalition of students nationwide, the National FFA Organization consists of roughly 8,995 chapters between the United States and its territories, and within these chapters, the FFA houses 850,823 members. As described by FFA Advisor and teacher Kyle Wood, these members work to celebrate teachers and staff due to helping aid in avid schedules and their help on both the school and district levels.

“It’s at least been done the last three or four years,” Wood said. “This is a part of National FFA week where we take the time to appreciate all the staff, teachers and admins in the building for all the flexibility allowing us to run our program at the level that it needs to be run.”

At Bridgeland, the main focus of these festivities shines on teachers, custodians and admins that work to keep the FFA running and the participating students thriving. Preparations for the event start weeks in advance, rallying students to cheer on the teachers and getting together the necessary forces to serve hundreds of staff members.

“Well we obviously go and buy the supplies, the students are the ones that fundraise to be able to do everything that they do all year long and as a small part of that we budget some to give back to be able to spend on our teachers and staff ” Wood said. “The students’ parents also come in and cook, [they] also serve breakfast, and finally the students applaud the teachers as they come in and out.”

With these necessary efforts ready, the teachers then flood in and are cheered on by the infantry of FFA students. Soon after, they are greeted by the cheerful faces of parents ready to serve them.

“I would say we served about 150 [teachers] this morning, so about

half of the building,” Wood said. “We’re serving breakfast tacos, so we’ve got brisket, we’ve got bacon and eggs, and we have the choices as far as tacos are concerned.”

With this effort, the FFA is able to properly thank their staff members for their help and leniency on absences during show and contest seasons, allowing them to perform to their best ability and bring home awards for the school to partake in. As our FFA chapter’s vice president Samantha Carlson says, the teachers are held very close to the FFA and are cherished by its members.

“Our purpose for hosting the teacher appreciation breakfast was to be able to say ‘thank you’ to all of our staff members for all that they do,” Carlson said. “We were hoping to give the staff the appreciation they deserved for all the hard work they put in this year.”