Barren County High School Future Farmers of America students experienced a bit of a full-circle moment Thursday night as about 500 community members gathered behind their school for an annual hog roast.

Hundreds of attendees filed into a pair of greenhouses, where they filled their plates with locally-sourced food before sitting at outdoor picnic tables under strings of lights as local country artist Justin Cole played live music. In the nearby barn, people played with birds and watched alpacas and goats lounge in their pens.

The focus of the meal was the pork, which the FFA students prepared from beginning to end as part of their agriculture classes. It may make some squeamish, but the purpose was educational.

“A lot of kids here, even in rural Barren County, have never been on a farm, have never even seen hogs, so to see the process of how they get slaughtered and how it literally goes from a live animal to now on their plate, that’s just a good experience for them,” said Mary Schalk, Barren High School FFA chapter president. “Even if they don’t go into this field, they know where their food comes from and how much work is put into their food so maybe they appreciate it more.”

Schalk gave a speech at the event alongside Joe Michael Moore, a local farmer, and Brandi Button-Johnson, executive director of Sustainable Glasgow, a major event partner.

The FFA students began organizing the event when school began by landscaping the area around the greenhouses and barn. Throughout the semester, they worked in committees on various tasks, from construction of the play pen for younger attendees to social media outreach, Schalk said.

Sustainable Glasgow got some of their vendors to teach students how to make flower arrangements for the tables and churn butter from JD Country Milk’s heavy cream, Button-Johnson said.

“(The FFA students) take so much pride in it,” she said. “What you’re seeing tonight is all them. Those are their projects, their horses, their cattle, their alpacas, their chickens. They came up with this whole play pen for kids … all of this is their brainchild.”

The event, open to anybody, showed “that agriculture cares about the community, that we can all come together,” said FFA member Kaylee White.

Andy Moore, Joe’s son and one of the school’s FFA advisors, said he taught an entire unit to prepare students for the pig slaughtering process, including lessons on animal rights and welfare, livestock safety and animal husbandry.

The hog roast exemplifies the goal of FFA – to give students experience that will help them decide whether they want to have a role in the future of agriculture.

“Four years you’ve got an opportunity to experiment with any angle of agriculture that you want to,” Moore said. “For some it’s going to be nothing more than an experiment, and for others, it’s going to be the reality of the rest of their life.”

The day began early, Moore said. At 7 a.m., grilling began. After flipping the meat every hour or so in a charcoal smoker, the first pieces of pork were ready at 4 p.m. From then until the night’s end, Moore’s team methodically brought new pieces inside, shredded the meat, sauced up pans and sent it down to the culinary crew to serve to attendees.

Schalk said the hog roast means a lot to the community because it shows them that they can get all their food, from meat to vegetables, right here in Kentucky.

“We have that rich soil, that bluegrass that people talk about,” she said. “We can really produce everything here and I think that’s really important.”

The event is a marker of hope that the future generation of farmers will continue the heritage, culture and tradition of preserving the local food system, Button-Johnson said.

“That’s how we preserve it – with this community aspect of people talking and the younger generation being around the older generation and learning,” she said. “It’s giving that encouragement and environment for them to do that.”