Garden City Leadership KFB

This last weekend was incredibly eye opening for me! It was our fifth and final Leadership class in Kansas. All the way across the state to Garden City we went! Kristen, my mom and Dean were off Thursday morning. Stephanie, another class member, met me to ride out with me at four thirty in the morning! I didn't even know that hour happened twice in a day. My travels haven't ever taken me to Garden City so I didn't know what to expect.

Day 1 started with a tour of a dairy. They had 6500 milking cows and 6500 replacements on that particular farm. The next stop was a 40,000 head feedlot. Both had very similar parallels. High level of commitment to their employees and the care of their cattle was the top two items both places talked a lot about. The work out there is hard long hours. Many Americans won't do it. They have to resort to refugees and immigrants to do the work. While there are bad apples in every group, every place we went stressed that these folks wanted to be there and to have a job as good as they had. The dairy put an ad in the highest unemployment counties in the state of Kansas. They paid milage to come out for interviews. They said most applied to meet their application number to keep unemployment. They brought 5 out to interview, I think. They offered a couple of jobs, but those individuals decided that the work was not what they wanted. The problem isn't that there are not jobs out there, the problem is Americans simply won't take them. Obviously, we have an immigration reform policy. How are we going to solve these problems? That's something that I can't answer, but it needs an answer.

Another place we went and toured was Tyson. There were 16 different languages spoken in the plant! The diversity was incredible! Not my favorite thing to see, but I know that it's a part of the food chain. They are very highly focused on producing a high quality product and treating their employees with the highest standards.

I don't know what needs to happen with immigration reform, but there has to be something done! This trip was so fascinating and eye opening for a Northeast Kansas girl that has been around very little diversity. So thankful I applied for this class and have been given the opportunity to expand my horizons and meet the lovely ladies I'm in the class with. I encourage all of you to apply for this amazing opportunity by October 1st. Apply today at http://www.kfb.org/getinvolved/leadershipkfb/index. It is definitely worth the time commitment. 

More to come next week!