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closeKiwanis Club donates $500 to Sumner FFA
After a barn fire in July killed six pigs belonging to Sumner High School FFA students, the Kiwanis Club of Puyallup offers donation
Roxanne Cooke
The Kiwanis of Puyallup Youth Services Committee donated $500 this month to the Sumner High School FFA in response to a barn fire in July that killed six of the group’s pigs.
The donation is intended to help students build new pens for their animals, said Louisa Smith, member of Kiwanis of Puyallup. The club chose to donate after hearing about the FFA’s need for help after the fire.
“Kiwanis is an organization that tries to help kids, especially kids that are in need,” Smith said. “These kids were desperately in need.”
The Kiwanis of Puyallup donates annually to the Sumner High School FFA to help a student purchase an animal. The money is then returned once the animal is sold in the spring and used for another student in the same process.
The $500 donation was given in light of this particular situation.
“This was a special thing that we wanted to help with because of the circumstances,” Smith said.
The barn formerly used by the students was located on property owned by Sumner Mayor Dave Enslow and estimated at a $25,000 loss. The East Pierce Professional Firefighter union donated $500 in July to help purchase new pigs. The cause of the fire is still under investigation.
Enslow has said he’s willing to accommodate the FFA students as best he can, but has not spoken to them yet about replacing the burned-down barn on his property.
“I’m not averse to rebuilding the barn on my side,” he said. “It’s been a nice arrangement. If I could help them out some more I would.”
Private donors have provided hundreds of dollars and Lowe’s Home Improvement donated a gift of wheelbarrows, pitchforks and other implements, said Krista Olson, an FFA alumni parent volunteer. The group still needs construction and animal care supplies for the temporary hog pens and shelters, all of which they plan to reuse in a permanent facility.
“These donations and support are crucial for the initial response and care of the animals, but they help to boost the kids’ morale, too,” Olson wrote in an e-mail to The Herald.
Donations are accepted by the Sumner FFA alumni group, care of Sumner High School, 1707 Main St., Sumner, WA 98390.
FFA is a national youth organization of some 476,000 students preparing for careers in the science, business and technology of agriculture with more than 7,000 local chapters in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.