Greeley West’s FFA and Baking Club worked together to create and send off care packages for U.S. troops on Monday, November 11th in honor of Veterans Day. With FFA and Baking Club coming together, they spent one month’s worth of hard work and dedication to create 150 packages to send out to our troops.
The Troop care packages have gone on for fiver years in honor of all the hard work that troops have put into keeping the country safe and protected. This tradition had started from FFA teacher Samantha Pierce creating the idea of troop care packages from her husband who was deployed to the rmy and enjoyed getting troop care packages from home. “It had started off with one to two packages,” said Pierce.
Once the idea got brought to the school it had grown from 30 to 50, to eventually growing up to 150. These packages are filled with hygiene items, which will typically be sent to third world countries where they don’t have grocery stores around the corner to get these kinds of supplies. The more packages that were getting sent out, the more FFA had joined in. “We thought this would be an amazing way to bring community service into our chapter,” agriculture teacher, Ms. Alexandra Grimes said.
Grimes and Mr. Kelly Longacre brought the idea to their students about the troop care packages to bring more opportunity to provide goods into these packages. This allows students to understand how they will be benefiting these troops to help encourage others to come together and get health care necessities needed on a day to day basis for troops. They included chapstick, foot powder, toothpaste, and more. “My group raised $200 dollars to help donate to the cause,” said Longacre.
Baking club brought in their baking skills and supplies to bake over 200+ treats for these troops. It was important for the members of the baking club to understand that these treats would have to work with people that have allergies and wouldn’t be able to melt while being transported. “It’s important for students to learn the service aspect,” Baking Club sponsor Ms. Brenda Guzman said.
