FFA Members head to Washington, D.C., for Washington Leadership Conference

FFA Members head to Washington, D.C., for Washington Leadership Conference
June 6th, 2023 | National FFA

For more than 50 years, thousands of FFA members from across the country have converged in our nation’s capital each summer to engage with legislators, hone civic engagement and leadership skills, and create community impact projects to take back to their cities and towns.

The National FFA Organization’s Washington Leadership Conference (WLC) will take place from June 6-July 22 at the Omni Shoreham, with six weeklong sessions for FFA members to choose from.

More than 2,000 FFA members from throughout the country are expected to attend the 2023 conference, the second-largest student experience that National FFA hosts each year, only behind the National FFA Convention & Expo that draws more than 70,000 attendees.

FFA members will spend the week under the guidance of agricultural and leadership professionals, facilitators, and FFA staff who will guide them through workshops, seminars, small group activities, and visits to national landmarks such as the National Mall, Arlington National Cemetery, Smithsonian Museums, and the U.S. Capitol. Each day of the conference focuses on a different principle taught through the context of our nation’s capital: exploration, encouragement, advocacy and service.

FFA members will have the unique opportunity to participate in congressional visits during the week with legislators from their states. Members can share concerns and challenges from their communities and discuss agricultural-related legislation.

Living to Serve

The capstone of the conference is the development of a Living to Serve Plan, a civic engagement project that participants will implement in their communities after returning home.

To develop this Living to Serve Plan, members are asked to analyze the needs of their communities before attending WLC. Students can lean on their FFA chapter advisors to implement the plan upon returning home. Examples of projects in recent years include promoting agricultural literacy, bringing attention to abuse, collecting and distributing shoes to individuals in Haiti, and creating a hunger awareness plan.

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