Nearly 70,000 people will descend upon downtown Indianapolis this week as the 96th National FFA Convention & Expo kicks off Wednesday.
“It’s almost like a giant family reunion just amped up a couple 1000 times because we have so many people coming together,” says National FFA President Andrew Seibel from Virginia.
He and his fellow national officer team have been preparing for months now to make sure FFA members attending from around the country have a memorable week at convention.
Seibel, the son of an ag educator, joined FFA in middle school. He spoke with HAT about why he wanted to become president of FFA.
“There were times in high school where I was a little bit down on myself, I was in a pretty low spot and the people within this organization were the ones that brought me back up and really made me feel special. They’re the reason that I wanted to come back and serve. Because whether it’s one FFA member or 10 FFA members, and now nearly a million FFA members, if I’m able to offer some sort of light, some sort of impact to a student who is similar to me and might be struggling a little bit, that’s well worth it. It’s been an incredible year of service.”
This year’s Convention theme is “Evolve”. Seibel explains.
“We’re going to have a lot of fun this week, but we are full of young professionals who want to be the next generation of leaders who are going to change the world. And the world of agriculture is changing. In order to be able to feed, fuel, and provide fiber for the growing world, we’re going to need to evolve and grow as an organization and to be the organization that provides that growing workforce we need to evolve as well.
“So, we’re staying rooted in agriculture, we’re keeping that at the focus,” Seibel continued. “That’s where we came from. That’s what we will always be is that organization, but we also want to make sure that all of our opportunities are available to every single student across this country so that they know that they can be one of those leaders and that they can make an extreme impact in their home and communities.”
McDonald’s of Indiana is proud to sponsor Hoosier Ag Today’s coverage of the National FFA Convention & Expo! McDonald’s salutes the next generation of great farmers who will continue to supply the world-class ingredients served to millions under the Golden Arches!