In the midst of the Future Farmers Association (FFA) state workshop in Madison-ville, Texas, tragedy struck. On the day the school’s FFA officers were set to return, flooding began in their area. Though they returned home safely on July 3, devastating floods swept through the Kerrville area the next day, sparking an idea.
“It happened all of a sudden,” senior FFA Treasurer Jayden Kelley said. “We ended up leaving [the conference] a day earlier and had we not, we probably would have been stuck out there too. The flooding was already getting bad.”
Upon their return home, livestock and agriculture teacher Taylor Harney received a call from Kingwood High School livestock and agriculture teacher Dustin Carnahan. Together, they discovered a way FFA could help with the floods: through the donation of supplies.
“[Carnahan] and his wife really organized this and did a good job,” Harney said. “I literally got a call back in 30 minutes. They said: ‘hey, we’re going to do it. Are you down?’ And that’s what we did.”
FFA began their collection of supplies the following Monday, joined by Kingwood High School and Kingwood Park High School on the north side, and Summer Creek High School and Humble High School on the south side.
“Harney would go pretty much everyday and bring [victims] supplies,” Kelley said. “We had lots of donations every single day. [There were] buckets and buckets, they were never ending.”
Collectively, the five schools raised over $40,000 in gift cards alone to aid in the relief of the flood victims. Additionally, they received donations of cleaning supplies, toilet paper, water, blankets and more supplies.
“A lot of sweat, a lot of tears went into this,” Harney said. “Kids worked [hard] with the moms and the dads and the grandparents. Everybody came together.”
FFA collected and delivered supplies to the affected area for approximately one week, making daily shipments.
“Mr. Harney was a huge help when it came to the process of collecting the items and bringing everybody together,” Kelley said. “He was taking time out of his day from that Monday to that Friday, delivering every single day. Without him, I don’t think this would have been possible.”
Not only did the flood donation process help Kerrville and its surrounding communities, but it also strengthened the
local community.
“It was heartwarming,” Kelley said. “You could tell the people genuinely cared and they really wanted to help. I feel like it definitely brought everyone together.”