BY LENA MAGEE
The Westside Express
This February, the Los Banos Future Farmers of America (FFA) held its annual Sweetheart Contest, selling red heart mylar balloons to fundraise for the chapter.
The Sweetheart Contest is a long-running annual event for Los Banos FFA. Sonia Falaschi, an FFA Advisor at Los Banos High School, has run the contest for 28 years, but the first contest dates back to the 1980s.
Jason Bretz, an FFA advisor at Los Banos High School for over two decades, explained how the contest began and changed over time.
“The Sweetheart Contest started back in the ‘80s with carnations. And then it evolved into balloons in the early ‘90s. At that point, there were three colored balloons: a white, a pink and a red. The four girls had to do everything on their own.
“They took the helium tanks home, had the balloons, the strings, the weights, and then had to deliver them all by themselves. Around 1998 or ‘99, it evolved into what it is today, which is strictly red balloons,” said Jason Bretz.
For the competition, the chapter selects four Sweetheart candidates (one student from each class) each year. Candidates are nominated during the chapter’s January meeting, and then FFA members present at the meeting vote on the final four.
Senior Rylee Powers, junior Jaci Bretz, sophomore Janelle Leon and freshman Miranda Navarrete were selected as this year’s candidates.
From Feb. 11 to 15, the candidates competed to sell as many red heart mylar balloons as they could while juggling school and other responsibilities.
Jaci Bretz said, “I had a really great time going around and selling balloons. It was nice to see so many friendly faces and all the support from the community.
“The only bad thing about it was I’m also in the middle of raising an animal for the May Day Fair, and there’s just not enough time in a day to do all of this.”
All balloons sold for the contest were blown up and tied by parents, Ag Boosters and volunteers selected by the candidates on LBHS grounds.
Community members, candidate family members and friends volunteered to deliver the balloons. Many of the balloons sold were donated to local organizations.
Los Banos FFA has donated 1,000 balloons to Valley Children’s Hospital yearly for the last 10 years and sent donations to New Bethany Residential Care, Valley Spring Memory Care and the Los Banos Post-Acute nursing facility.
On Feb. 18, the FFA chapter held the Sweetheart Banquet. There, the advisors announced the winner of the contest and the amount raised by the candidates.
This year, they announced Jaci Bretz, the chapter’s FFA Reporter, as FFA Sweetheart. Altogether, the FFA Sweethearts raised a gross amount of $29,000 and delivered approximately 7,000 balloons.
The money raised from the sales goes toward the FFA program to pay for leadership conferences, buses for field trips, and other areas where it is needed.
“I wasn’t very nervous because I knew that, no matter what, the chapter wins. I was very supportive of all the girls, and I know we raised a lot of money together. It was nice to all come together,” said Jaci Bretz.
