(Ethan, SD) — On Tuesday, May 16, Central Electric Cooperative presented Ethan FFA with an $800 Operation Round-Up® grant for a raised garden project.
Ethan High School ag teacher and FFA advisor Susan Roudabush organized the project. In the grant application she explained, “As a new FFA chapter, we obtained a grant to build a raised garden at our school through the FFA Foundation to teach the elementary grades about raising a garden and sustainability.”
Roudabush said the grant from the S.D. FFA Foundation was a good starting point, but the school wanted to make the most of the project, so they sought local support from parents and the grant from Central Electric Cooperative.
“We needed simple tools, wheelbarrows, garden hoses, hand tools, a watering system, sprayers, seed and fertilizer. We also needed additional soil to go into the beds,” Roudabush shared. She said the raised garden will continue to be a useful teaching tool into the future.
Jeff Gustafson of Ethan serves on the Central Electric Cooperative board of directors. He said, “It’s great to see what the Ethan FFA chapter is doing. Cooperatives like Central Electric operate on seven basic principles, one of which is commitment to community, and this is an excellent example of that commitment.”
Operation Round-Up is a voluntary program in which members round up their monthly statement to the next whole dollar, and the extra cents accumulate to support area projects. Many cooperative employees also contribute to the fund through payroll. Since 2016, members and employees have invested more than $170,000 to support projects in the cooperative’s eight-county footprint, which includes Aurora, Brule, Buffalo, Davison, Hanson, Jerauld, Miner and Sanborn Counties.
The next Operation Round-Up grant application deadline is Nov. 1. For more information about the program, please contact Central Electric Cooperative at 1-800-477-2892 or visit http://www.centralec.coop/operation-round-up.
Photo credit: Kendra Erickson, Ethan Teacher and Yearbook Advisor