FFA students make quick work of landscaping

Many hands make light work, or so the proverb goes. But when you’ve got 140 pairs of hands, you can really make the dirt fly.

Benton County Habitat for Humanity coordinators learned that this weekend, when hordes of eager helpers descended upon Corvallis during the 2007 FFA State Convention at Oregon State University. Community service is a part of the philosophy of the National FFA Organization, a program for high school and college students aimed at agricultural education and vocation.

During last weekend’s convention at OSU, students from more than 100 Oregon high schools came to Corvallis for a series of workshops and programs, and many participated in community-service projects as well. This year’s convention theme was “Living to Serve,” and participants had the option of signing up for a volunteer project.

Habitat for Humanity benefitted from the extra hands, and harnessed the enthusiastic energy of 140 FFA members to do landscaping projects.

Janice Levenhagen, volunteer coordinator for Benton Habitat, said there were “just piles” of students helping out over the weekend, both at the organization’s store site on Ninth Street, and at a home project on Northeast Conifer.

“When they contacted me, they were more interested in landscape projects because of their agricultural background, so we tailored the projects to that (request),” Levenhagen said.

From garnering donations from nurseries to moving dirt, there was a project for every hand, including planting 85 donated arborvitae. The shoveling work at the Conifer site went so well and so fast, that Habitat staff members were amazed at how much was accomplished.

“They were really impressed with how quickly the work got done,” Levenhagen said. What was estimated to take four or five Saturdays was completed in one weekend by the FFA volunteers.

Kari Boettcher, state secretary of the Oregon FFA, helped organize the volunteer event after a fellow state officer was involved in a car wreck and wasn’t able to participate. She said the event was a good way for FFA students to do something active for a few hours. The volunteers worked in two- hour shifts, and were able to change from their formal FFA uniform, required at the convention, into jeans and T-shirts, something they were eager to take advantage of.

“We heard a lot of good feedback,” from participants, Boettcher said. With competitions and workshops taking up most of their time, it was a welcome break in the weekend’s events.

“They have a lot of things going.”

To learn more about Benton Habitat, go to http://www.bentonhabitat.org.