Beyond the greenhouse: Rainier FFA’s annual plant sale provides service to community

Under the direction of Angie Karnes, the agriculture department at Rainier High School keeps on growing.

Now in her 30th year in the district, the environmental science teacher has developed a curriculum that extends well beyond the classroom, impacting the lives of her students and the community at large.

As the primary adviser for the Rainier High School FFA, Karnes has grown the program’s annual plant sale at the Rainier greenhouses into a local institution, one that has faced setbacks and challenges and turned them into opportunities.
Take this latest sale, which started online April 22 and finished in person the weekend of May 3. In the leadup to the sale, Karnes oversaw the concreting of one of the greenhouses. During this time, students were planting the plugs they received from a local grower in Tenino. Karnes also brought in new tables.
She thinks all the shuffling around might have introduced some contaminants. They also dealt with overcrowding and excess soil on the ground.

Worst of all, they were hit with aphids.

It’s typical in situations where the weather fluctuates back and forth from hot to cold, Karnes said.

“But we are all natural here,” Karnes said. “We don’t use any chemicals that are not safe.”

So Karnes and her students used a mixture of rubbing alcohol, water and dish soap to handle the problem. It took consistent effort, but Karnes said they were successful, especially compared to other agricultural teachers in the area, even though they had to remove some crops to prevent spreading.

The situation also provided a chance for practical learning.

“If we see stuff, we bring it back in the classroom,” Karnes said. “We troubleshoot, ‘How do we do this?’ The kids have all learned how to do the mixture, how to do the spraying, so that even if they just have it in their homes someday and they’re having gardens and whatever, they’ll know how to take care of and treat their stuff.”

That’s because Rainier High School students who participate in Karnes’s agriculture classes, the FFA, the floral shop or the community garden learn resourcefulness and adaptability firsthand.

Years ago, after the school district bought the property of a nearby burned-down house, Karnes and her “natural resource kids” cleaned it up.
Later, they were able to fund an additional greenhouse on the site.
“And so we really grew at that point, maybe tripling how many plants we were doing,” Karnes said.

During the COVID pandemic, Karnes had to make the annual plant sale online only — or else not have it at all.

“We had to teach online, so I taught online until noon, and then I’d come to the greenhouses and do the transplanting and do all that kind of stuff and spend the hours,” Karnes said.

Karnes, along with members of her professional learning community (PLC) teacher group, hosted an online sale and loaded cars with plants as they lined up at the school.

When other schools — who also went online — went back to in-person sales after COVID restrictions eased, Karnes again saw an opportunity for further learning.

“Most of them have all gone back to just in-person, but my philosophy on that was these kids are going to maybe go to Safeway or Walmart. You know, the local businesses here. And they all do online ordering. And then you see them shopping and pulling the products. And so, we’re teaching that.”

Karnes said that the online process allows the students to learn the plants even better, “because they’ve got this long list and they’re like, ‘Okay, I got to find these plants and get it pulled.’”

That’s why she still starts with an online sale before finishing with an in-person sale.

“Now they’re learning the piece where they have to interact with people and get comfortable with what they’re doing. And so, I like doing both. I think it’s very valuable for the skills.

Skills like working the cash register.

“We started (prepping) on the first day of school in landscape,” Rainier student Jaycee Keeney said after taking an in-person order. “We started planting all the vegetables very early. And then a couple months after that we started planting our flowers as well in our big greenhouse.”

Employability is the word Karnes uses when talking about the range of tasks her students learn, from running the register like Jaycee to making marketing signs to managing inventory.

They also learn the importance of sustainability. Using aeroponic tower gardens, Karnes and her students have been growing produce. So much, in fact, that they are able to send it straight to the lunchroom.

“We actually ran this greenhouse all winter and we grew all the lettuce and cilantro because they needed some herbs, basil, whatever they asked for,” Karnes said.

This year, Karnes received help from fellow FFA advisor, and agricultural shop teacher, Kyle Johnson, who’s in his first year at the school.

Johnson took over the shop program from longtime teacher John Lybecker, whom Johnson called a “town staple.”

“Every day I’m working to do the best that I can to fill those shoes and help the students get the most real-world experiences they possibly can to help them be as successful as possible when they graduate,” Johnson said.

According to Johnson, students that move through the shop program learn a “little bit of metalworking, a little bit of welding, (computer numerical control), plasma cutting and woodworking.”

For the first time, this year the shop students provided many items at the plant sale to complement the wide variety of hanging baskets, vegetables, annuals, perennials, herbs and succulents.

“We’ve had numerous shelves and coat hangers and metal art designs and fire pits and cedar planter boxes and whatnot that we could built by students,” Johnson said. “And that’s integrated into the curriculum for them to do each of these different projects. And then it doubles for us being able to try to sell these to help build our connections with the community, the students’ connection with the communities and give them a chance at some community service hours.”

Shop students also help out around the school when duty calls. On Friday, May 2, that duty was tending to a broken school bell from 1987.

“One time the school’s tractor, the bucket on it had a massive crack in it, so we fixed that,” Johnson said. “We have fixed numerous tables and chairs and stools. We’ve built picnic tables, we’ve fixed camera poles for our track team, all sorts of different basketball, volleyball, cornhole equipment for sports teams.”

“Whatever it is that somebody around the school sees that needs to be fixed, and if we can fix it, we’ll try to,” Johnson added.

The annual FFA sale is not only educational — it’s profitable. Karnes estimated the FFA club made around $4,000 after factoring in expenses. But for her, it’s about more than the money. It’s what the students learned through the entire process of “seeding, transplanting, pinching, deciding on colors for baskets, marketing,” as well as the plants’ needs, such as watering and nutrients.

“Honestly, we need to remember that none of this success (is) possible without the support of our community,” Karnes said.