Champions of Excellence Awards recognize county Farm Bureaus for outstanding efforts to implement member-developed policy, advocate organizational positions, inform consumers and promote Michigan agriculture.
A who’s-who roster of Michigan’s county Farm Bureaus have earned 2025 Champions of Excellence Awards in two categories: Involvement and Grassroots. Involvement-category winners were recognized in the first article in this series. Here’s the third batch of winners in the grassroots category:
Kent's Farm Kid Safety Day
To help safeguard today’s farmers and tomorrow’s, a high priority on farm safety both goes without saying and bears repeating. To that end, Kent County Farm Bureau last spring zoomed in on one specific aspect of that broad subject area with its Farm Kid Safety Day.
Beyond the long list of on-farm hazards children are smart to avoid — tools, chemicals, livestock, grain bins, heavy equipment — the program covered first aid fundamentals in case things do go wrong. Additional emphasis went toward sharing lessons simple enough for the young attendees to internalize and share with their grown-ups back at home.
County Farm Bureau leadership and the Promotion & Education team enlisted Rural Rescue, a group of emergency-service providers who do farm-flavored safety trainings, to provide programming, plan safety stations and prepare farm-specific first-aid kits for attendees to take home.
In the name of community service — and potential membership prospects — invitations went to both member and non-member families with children ages 6-14. County Farm Bureau members received e-mailed invitations and were encouraged to forward them to their contacts and post flyers on area bulletin boards. Newer members were contacted individually to maximize their understanding of and interest in the event.
The Kent County Youth Fair offered to host the event at its new facility and provided lunch for children and volunteers alike. The five-hour camp saw small groups of participants circulating between activity stations, each looking closely at farm-based hazards.
The chemical safety lesson was a standout, with children sticking their hand into buckets simulating on-farm chemicals, reading the appropriate safety labels and practicing recommended treatments.
Farm Kid Safety Day put another feather in Kent County Farm Bureau’s youth-outreach cap. Under the same banner are student scholarships, ag-education grants, and sponsorships at the annual Youth Fair.
Admission was free and attendance exceeded expectations: Planners hoped for 25 children and got more than twice that: almost 60 kids from 14 member families — and 13 non-member families — in Kent and neighboring counties.
“I brought five of my grandkids,” reported one of the grown-ups in tow. “They all said it was fun and that they learned a lot. “On the way home, I asked what their favorite stations were and what they learned. You could hear their excitement in their answers!”
Isabella's Preschool Project
Informed by a goal of raising the status of ag education in local schools, Isabella County Farm Bureau leaders learned area preschools, specifically, lacked sufficient inventories of farm toys and other age-appropriate teaching tools.
The resulting initiative, Isabella’s Preschool Project, this year provided the area’s youngest students with interactive play barns and livestock, plus an ag-accurate, farm-themed coloring book.
With the young children of many county Farm Bureau members attending these schools, leaders and Promotion & Education volunteers saw an attractive new market for helping spread the gospel of Michigan agriculture to a new, young audience.
The P&E chair met with preschool teachers to better understand their needs and get an approximate student headcount — vital information for determining a budget for the project. Once approved, the board and program leaders scoured local stores and online retailers for farm toys and play barns.
Board members delivered the materials, including more than 350 copies of the Bryant Family Farm coloring book, created by Isabella County Young Farmer Jessica Bryant. Each copy bore a QR code linking to Farm Bureau membership information.
Teachers read the books aloud to their students and discussed with them agriculture’s role in the community.
Altogether the project reached an estimated 1,500 children and adults with ag-accurate information — three times the average audience of fourth-graders reached by the county’s popular Project RED (Rural Education Day).
Look for another batch of Champions of Excellence district winners in the next Farm Gate, Oct. 21.
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