Members of the Garden Spot FFA of Lampeter-Strasburg High School competed at the National FFA Convention on Oct. 28 in Indianapolis. Gracie Albright, Melanie Cox, Rachael Lee and Katie Ranck constituted the Agriculture Communications Career Development Event team and won several medals both as a group and as individuals.

The team placed fourth in the nation and received a gold team placing. Albright received a gold medal and placed fourth individually, Ranck and Cox received gold medals and Lee received a silver medal.

The Garden Spot FFA team placed first at the state convention in June, qualifying it to compete at the national convention. The state convention models the national competition; the students took individual quizzes on editing and communications, wrote both opinion and editorial pieces and designed an overall media plan pitch as a team. The individual scores were tallied in addition to the team's overall score to determine placements and medals awarded.

This year, participants in the contest were prompted to pitch a local organization that is involved with a community garden and explain how they would help to develop and improve it further. The Garden Spot FFA team chose to work with The Edible Classroom, a nonprofit organization that partners with schools to create and maintain gardens for a hands-on learning experience. "We thought that The Edible Classroom had a lot to bring to the table," said Ranck. "(The organization) does a lot of community outreach in our school district, so it was the one we were most connected to."

Each member of the Garden Spot FFA team attended the national convention last year as an educational trip but competed for the first time this year. "It was a great experience to be able to see all of the different pieces of things we've learned being applied in real-life scenarios," said Albright. "It's all relevant to the careers we want to go into and serves as a way to help us grow our understanding more."

There were many different aspects that the students needed to factor into their pitch, including graphic design, which team member Lee was tasked with. Lee designed the website for the team's project and hopes to pursue a career in graphic and web design after high school. "Overall, it was an amazing experience. I would love to take what I've learned from being a part of FFA and build on it in college," said Lee.

For more information on the Garden Spot FFA, search for "LSHS Garden Spot FFA" on Facebook.