Last week, five Ledyard High School students boarded a plane bound for Louisville, Ky. On Thursday, they are expected to present a years' worth of efforts to a federal agency and Future Farmers of America members from across the nation.

Last year, with a $6,500 "Living to Serve" grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the FFA, the students raised pigs and grew a garden with the help of Ledyard agri-science teacher Devon O'Keefe. They prepared and donated 400 pounds of pork and 300 pounds of vegetables for community members in need.

They also educated 88 second-graders about healthy eating and taught them basic gardening skills. O'Keefe said the same students were paired with second-grade classrooms in North Stonington and Preston, "so they did form a bond" with the kids.

The five students travelling to Kentucky - Veronica Fuchs of Norwich, Ayana Clement of Ledyard, Olivia Lyon of Groton, Katherine Kostic of North Stonington and Arianne Whitford of Stonington - were the most deeply involved in the project, said O'Keefe. Fuchs, who likes large animals and helped build a new pigpen, was involved in raising the pigs. The other four were selected to teach the second-graders.

Almost every agri-science student helped with the project, said O'Keefe, but these five were the leaders. They put in hours after school and over the summer to grow vegetables, care for pigs and plan lessons, she said.

Ledyard was one of 55 FFA chapters out of 7,600 nationwide chosen for the "Living to Serve" grant, which required community service to towns with fewer than 10,000 residents. That eliminated Ledyard, so O'Keefe and her students chose to focus their efforts on nearby North Stonington and Preston.

They split the pork and produce between the two towns' food pantries, instead of selling it as they normally would, said O'Keefe. When they dropped off their humane certified pork, one food pantry told them that the only meat product they normally provided was tuna. That came as a shock to some students, she said.

It's "good for high schoolers to know what may be normal for them may be abnormal for someone else," said O'Keefe.

The kids also faced another shock, she said, when they were teaching a class of second-graders and one child became upset that potato chips, made from a vegetable, were considered unhealthy.

"They really had to think on their feet," she said.

Junior Ayana Clement, 16, said working with the second-graders was challenging at times but ultimately a rewarding experience.

Clement said she has a young cousin, so thought she knew what she was getting into. But "it's more complicated" when there are 20 of them, she said, noting that some kids just don't like to listen.

But it was nice to see that the teaching "does make a difference," said Clement.

The reports the second-graders made to their teachers showed that they ate more healthy food after the visits from LHS students. They also used the gardening kits the teenagers gave them to start their own gardens, and some even entered the produce in the Ledyard Fair.

"They actually took our advice," said Clement proudly.

K.CATALFAMO@THEDAY.COM

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