By

Kathy Rebber,   Mt. Healthy Elementary School

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Topics:

Access to Healthy Foods,  Community Involvement

On Friday, October 2, we had a Farmer Day at Mt. Healthy Elementary School. We invited local farmers to come and share with our students how they help bring healthy foods to our tables. We had a dairy farmer bring a dairy cow and a pair of 12-hour-old twin calves. The students enjoyed petting the calves and hearing about the dairy farm. An FFA student brought a skid steer and talked about how this machine is used on the farm. A pig farmer brought two pigs; one was a state fair champion, and they talked about the pigs. A hay farmer brought a baler and showed the students how it made the bales of hay and what hay is used for. We had strawberry smoothies for our snack, and Buttercup, the dairy mascot, handed out FUTP 60 treat bags with pencils, erasers, stickers, and a coloring book inside. It was a great event.

What challenges did you face and how did you overcome them?

This was not a good time to ask farmers for help. It is harvest season and they are very busy. I know we could have had a lot more stations and tractors if we would have done it at a different time of year.

How did students and adults work together as a team?

Our student team thought up the idea and asked the farmers to come. They led the groups to the different stations and served and cleaned up the strawberry smoothies.