Anna, Texas — Years spent teaching agricultural education at Anna High School gave former Anna High School agricultural education teacher Joseph Molina firsthand insight into the demands placed on agriculture teachers. Now, he is using those lessons to build a business designed to make their jobs a little easier.
Molina is the founder of TradeCraft Education, a company that provides curriculum, classroom projects and other ready-to-use resources for agricultural education programs. The company also helps schools, nonprofits and community organizations with fundraising.
“I absolutely loved my time teaching agricultural education at Anna High School,” Molina said. “A lot of the idea for TradeCraft came directly from that experience.”
During his time in the classroom, Molina saw how much of an agriculture teacher’s workload extended beyond teaching. Agriculture teachers may simultaneously serve as instructors, shop managers, FFA advisors, event planners and project supervisors.
For newer teachers, that workload can be especially challenging.
“Newer teachers especially may have the knowledge to teach but not years of project plans, files, supplier relationships and classroom resources already built up,” Molina said. “There is a real need for more practical, ready-to-use resources that help teachers spend less time reinventing the wheel and more time actually working with students.”
Anna FFA students gather during an LDE competition at McKinney High School in November 2023.
Joseph Molina, who later founded TradeCraft Education, helped coach Anna FFA students at the competition during his time teaching agricultural education at Anna High School.
From the Classroom to TradeCraft
That experience helped inspire what eventually became TradeCraft.
Molina initially envisioned the company primarily as a resource for agricultural educators, offering projects, curriculum and materials that teachers could bring directly into their classrooms.
That remains a central part of the business today.
TradeCraft offers curriculum, project kits, FFA chapter tools and event support. Molina said he is particularly proud of the company’s growing collection of DXF files and project plans, which give teachers classroom-ready materials without requiring them to develop everything from scratch.
The company also provides resources designed to help FFA chapters prepare for Leadership Development Events and Career Development Events.
For competitions such as Radio Broadcasting and other LDEs and CDEs, TradeCraft can provide practice materials, scripts, study resources, training guides and structured activities.
“The goal is to give advisors a strong starting point,” Molina said, “so they can spend less time building materials from scratch and more time actually coaching students.”
For Molina, seeing teachers put those resources to work has been one of the most rewarding parts of building the company.
“The biggest impact I’ve seen is teachers being able to take something we created and put it to use almost immediately in their classroom or FFA program,” he said.
He has also watched educators share TradeCraft’s project plans and resources with other teachers, extending their reach beyond the programs that initially found them.
Growing Beyond Agricultural Education
As TradeCraft has grown, so has its mission.
The company now operates with two major focuses: supporting agricultural education and providing fundraising services to a broader range of organizations.
Through its fundraising division, TradeCraft works with school clubs, booster organizations, youth sports programs, nonprofits and community groups. Molina said the goal is to simplify fundraising while allowing organizations to keep more of the money they raise.
“The mission is still the same—make complicated, time-consuming work easier for the people doing it,” Molina said.
While TradeCraft’s educational materials remain primarily centered on agricultural education and FFA, Molina sees opportunities for the company to eventually expand into other hands-on and career-focused programs.
For now, he plans to continue growing TradeCraft’s library of curriculum, projects, DXF files and other classroom resources while bringing additional contributors onto the platform.
“Ultimately, I’d like TradeCraft to become a place people can turn to when they need practical tools that save time, simplify the process and help their organization succeed,” Molina said.
The TradeCraft Educational Services logo. TradeCraft was founded by former Anna High School agricultural education teacher Joseph Molina to provide practical resources for educators and organizations. Courtesy of TradeCraft Educational Services.
Staying Connected to Anna and Agricultural Education
Although Molina has moved from teaching into business, he has not left agricultural education behind.
Instead of working directly with students in a single classroom, TradeCraft has given him an opportunity to support teachers and programs on a larger scale.
“It means a lot to me because I absolutely loved my time teaching in Anna, and agricultural education is still something I care deeply about,” Molina said.
His years at Anna High School remain an important part of that journey. He said hearing that former students still remember his time there means a great deal to him.
“TradeCraft gives me the opportunity to support ag teachers and students in a different way,” Molina said. “Rather than impacting one classroom or one program, we now have the chance to create resources that can help teachers and students across the state and beyond. It’s been really rewarding to stay connected to agricultural education while finding a new way to serve it.”
Teachers, FFA advisors and organizations interested in exploring TradeCraft’s curriculum, project plans, fundraising services and other resources can learn more at TradeCraft Education’s website.
The Anna Progress 
Leave a comment