ANDOVER – The students in the Pymatuning Valley High School Future Farmers of America program receive a lot of support from the district’s administration as well as the faculty.
PVHS Ag Ed Instructor and FFA Advisor Thomas Mazzaro’s FFA students took time before school on Friday, Feb. 20, to say thank you for that support through their annual Staff Appreciation Breakfast.
“These are the teachers that helped raise them through the years, and now this is their way of saying thank you and giving back,” Mazzaro said. “It also helps them thank those teachers that the kids currently have because of all the time that we get out of school to do all of our events. This is one way that the kids can say thank you.”
Though meant as a way to give thanks, the breakfast is also an opportunity for the students to learn.
“I think it’s just important that they learn that, in life, people are going to do things for them that they need to be thankful for, and this is a way that the teachers are thankful for this breakfast, and the kids get to see that, in return for their hard work, that the district is proud of what they do,” Mazzaro said.
The breakfast is something both the Pymatuning Valley Local School District staff and the FFA students enjoy.
“Both can’t wait for this day to come,” Mazzaro said. “It’s hard to get kids here at 7:30 on a regular day and they were here at five o’clock this morning. Twenty-five kids were here at five o’clock this morning and getting ready to cook and not one complaint.”
The students cooked and served pancakes, French toast, sausage, biscuits and gravy, bacon, scrambled eggs, toast and mixed fruit.
“The kids bring some of the food in, but all the meat that is served is donated by the three local slaughterhouses. Smokin’ T’s, Cherry Valley and Piper’s donate all the sausage and bacon,” Mazzaro said. “We go through about 60 pounds total, 30 pounds each (of bacon and sausage). That’s all donated to us. The kids get the donations. They go see the slaughterhouses, and we couldn’t do it without the slaughterhouses’ support.”
The students even prepare and serve the food for the breakfast.
“They do it all,” Mazzaro said. “I just oversee it, make sure everything goes well. We have a few other staff that chip in here and there, but the kids take care of all of it. They get all the donations for it.”
The FFA program is also grateful to the business community for the support it receives.
“It’s extremely important to the chapter and the support that they give us, whether it’s for this breakfast or even the new endeavor of the barn that we’re building,” Mazzaro said.
In the future, the students will raise their own animals to be slaughtered and the meat will be used for the breakfast.
“We’ll raise the meat for the teacher’s breakfast here on campus,” Mazzaro said. “It’ll be processed, obviously, by the local slaughterhouses, but the meat will be raised here on campus. It is full circle, and the kids will be responsible for the care of those animals on a daily basis.”
The FFA program teaches students a number of skills they can use on a farm, but also skills they can use away from them.
“I think the biggest thing is they’re learning to be leaders, learning to be the advocates for the next generation of agricultural people speaking,” Mazzaro said. “They are the voice of agriculture, these kids.”
Mazzaro is pleased to see his passion mirrored back at him through his students.
“I think it’s very, very gratifying to know that most of them have the same passion for agriculture as I have, and that I have had my entire life,” Mazzaro said. “That’s what I try to instill in them, that we have to be the ones to teach those that don’t know because, as we know today, social media is not always what you can believe and they are the voice of those of those farmers, of what everybody is doing quietly.”
Mazzaro expressed gratitude toward the people who make his program possible.
“The support that the board and administration here at PV gives this program is something you can’t thank,” Mazzaro said. “They do a tremendous job allowing these kids to do what they do, and the staff here too, really. (The students are) missing classes this morning. Not that classroom isn’t important, but there’s a lesson they’re learning here. It’s bigger than the classroom.”
