DUBLIN, Ga. — These Dublin High School Future Farmers of America students tend to the plants inside their campus greenhouse, but the program isn't just about agriculture.
"It gets you ready for your career and your future," FFA President Mohamed Ali said. "It really is a good program. It strengthens you and gives you many leadership skills."
The students partnered with a local nonprofit to collect clothes and furniture for people in need.
"I wanted to be able to help and become a better leader and be able to be more open with strangers and people because I knew I would have to work a lot with strangers later in life," 11th grader Makyla Butler said.
FFA President Mohamed Ali, Butler and Michaela Richards used those skills to organize a clothing drive for their community outreach project during National FFA Week.
Their adviser, Jeffery Tomblin, helped with the project.
"We picked up over 50 or 60 shoes. In clothing, there was about 100 pounds of clothing. We even got items of furniture, two matching chairs that were delivered as well as some side tables for somebody," Tomblin said.
They partnered with Renia Avera from Widow's Oil Ministries, a nonprofit, to give out the donations.
"They came in with huge trash bags, the big black ones, the drawstring 13 gallon and within 3-4 days, all that was given by the students and teachers has already found its place in our community," Avera said.
The students say they got far more out of the lessons they learned than the clothes they gave away.
"Don't think about yourself before you think about others," Richards said.
Tomblin says they have over 100 members in their FFA program and they participate in community service events all throughout the year.
"We accomplished this and it was really happy on the look of those people's faces and doing this is a very kind thing to the public," Ali said.
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