INDIANAPOLIS — It's a conference Future Farmers of America students look forward to every year.
"Being here with all the other FFA members and really seeing the bigger picture," said Laney Rogers, part of the Erwin FFA in Tennessee.
The youth organization helps prepare students for leadership, personal growth and career success through agriculture.
Noah Canter is a part of the Erwin chapter attending the National FFA Convention in Indianapolis this week. Just last month, his hometown was hit by Hurricane Helene.
"Our hospital's gone, several homes gone, several businesses, they're not going to be able to read back and back up and running anytime soon," Canter said.
His chapter didn't know if they could still attend the conference.
"When it first happened, we held out hope and then afterwards we thought, 'Well, maybe we aren't going to be able to make it,'" Canter said.
That is, until the national FFA stepped in to help to pay for the chapter to go. Rogers said going to the convention helps her escape from the hard days back home.
"It's been really amazing to be able to go to national convention and get kind of normalcy from what's going on at home, because there's a lot of uncertain things with when we go back to school, everybody recovering from everything," Rogers said.
Since the hurricane, the Erwin chapter has stepped up to help their town.
"We cleaned up two farms. We volunteered in the shelter. Several of our officers have went at different times. Several of our different members have went to different times in groups and volunteered in the shelter," Canter said.
And they want to continue helping even after they get back to Tennessee.
The FFA convention runs through the rest of the week.