FFA Blessings Box serves York community

In May, a large wood­en blue box with a glass door and two shelves was installed in the front park­ing lot of York Electric’s main office in York. A blue and yel­low sign on the side of the box reads “York FFA Liv­ing to Serve.” On any giv­en day, the box will con­tain an assort­ment of non-per­ish­able food and per­son­al hygiene items.

The “Bless­ings Box” is a com­mu­ni­ty project cre­at­ed by the York chap­ter of Future Farm­ers of Amer­i­ca (FFA). The project was led by Kay­ci Wilk­er­son, a recent grad­u­ate of York Com­pre­hen­sive High School and pres­i­dent of the York FFA chap­ter. Co-op employ­ees reg­u­lar­ly donate items to restock the box, but any­one is wel­come to donate essen­tial items for those in need.

Wilk­er­son applied for and received a $3,000 Liv­ing to Serve grant, the max­i­mum award, through the Nation­al FFA to fund the project. York Com­pre­hen­sive High School was one of only two schools in the state to receive fund­ing from this pro­gram, along­side Clover Mid­dle School’s par­tial grant. Wilk­er­son is cur­rent­ly run­ning for the state FFA office to con­tin­ue her com­mit­ment to ser­vice and lead­er­ship.

The Nation­al FFA is a youth orga­ni­za­tion that pre­pares its mem­bers for lead­er­ship, per­son­al growth and career suc­cess through agri­cul­tur­al edu­ca­tion. Found­ed in 1928, FFA teach­es stu­dents that agri­cul­ture is not just farm­ing: it’s a sci­ence, a busi­ness and an art. Through class­room learn­ing and real-world expe­ri­ences, FFA mem­bers explore a vari­ety of career paths while liv­ing out their mot­to: “Learn­ing to Do, Doing to Learn, Earn­ing to Live and Liv­ing to Serve.”

YEC is hon­ored to part­ner with local stu­dents like Kay­ci and pro­vide a vis­i­ble, acces­si­ble loca­tion for York FFA’s com­mu­ni­ty project. The Bless­ings Box reflects our shared val­ues of ser­vice, com­pas­sion and com­mit­ment to com­mu­ni­ty.