COLUMBUS, Ohio — Wilmington College and The Ohio State University Collegiate Farm Bureau chapters were recently announced as recipients of mini-grants from the American Farm Bureau Federation.

Each chapter received $500 to aid in leadership development, community service outreach, and the purchase of educational materials. 

“Both of these chapters are great examples of what a successful Collegiate Farm Bureau is all about, and to see them being recognized at the national level is truly fitting,” said Katie Share, ExploreAg and youth development specialist with Ohio Farm Bureau. “With the help of these mini-grants, students will be able to boost their current programs and discover new opportunities that will allow them to increase their impact throughout their communities.”

Ruth Beery, president of the Collegiate Farm Bureau Chapter at Wilmington College applied for the grant in collaboration with other chapter members. “My officer team and I worked on it together to focus on what we wanted to do here on campus,” she said. 

The mini-grant was focused on an event that was done in the past, an etiquette dinner. “It’s offered to any student who wants to come, not just Farm Bureau members on campus, but any students who are interested in learning a little bit more about professional etiquette at dinner settings,” Beery said. “Especially in agriculture, we find that people don’t necessarily know what to do when they go into that professional dinner. We did this etiquette dinner last year and  we wanted to do it again this year.”

The dinner is scheduled for Feb. 3 on the Wilmington campus with most of the $500 going toward the meals. “Last year there was a cost involved,” Beery said. Participants paid $10 to attend. “But this year we’re hoping that we can have everybody who wants to come and not have to worry about that cost for the meal,” she said.

Beery is expecting between 30 to 40 students this year. “Since it’s in the second year and we like to invite a lot more people than just the Farm Bureau members on campus – we hope to get a little bit more involvement,” she said.

Another portion of the grant will pay for a speaker. “We will have somebody from Ohio Farm Bureau main office come and speak on etiquette,” Beery said. “Part of the mini-grant is going go for their compensation  to drive down here.”

Beery, a junior studying agriculture animal science with a double major in biology on a pre-vet track, came to Wilmington College from a non-traditional ag background. “I did not grow up on a crop or a livestock farm and Wilmington has been very accommodating to me,” she said. “It’s been a cool experience to be a part of Wilmington’s community and it’s very impressive to see where a lot of our students are.”

Sarah Hoak, a junior studying sustainable agriculture/agribusiness and president of The Ohio State University Collegiate Farm Bureau chapter, worked on getting the grant for her chapter.

OSU chose to focus on agriculture literacy.

“We’re using the grant to make literacy kits and then give them out to inner-city schools in Columbus,” Hoak said.

The idea came from Hoak’s summer internship with her home county Farm Bureau. ”I interned for the organization director for Richland and the three counties surrounding counties,” she said.  “One of the members did a project with a literacy kit and gave them out to schools in Richland County.” 

However, except for Mansfield, most of Richland County and the surrounding counties are rural communities. Many students getting the kits in these schools were familiar with agriculture or came from a farm background. 

Hoak saw an opportunity.

“They were giving kits out to a bunch of little schools that are surrounded by agriculture and know what it is,” Hoak said. “My thinking coming into this process was  — Why don’t we bring agriculture to Columbus? These inner-city schools don’t ever get to see it.”

The Columbus schools have not been identified yet. “I’m going to reach out to Franklin County Farm Bureau and use Ohio State’s network to try to find some schools that would allow us to present the kits to their classrooms and spend an hour or so with the kids going through the book and do an activity with them,” Hoak said.

Classrooms receive two Ag Literacy Kits. Each kit contains a hardcover book, an educator’s guide, and an ag magazine for each student. “We’re also adding an activity that the kids can do that relates to the book,” Hoak said. The literacy program is designed for grades 3-5

The books and the ag magazines are picked out, but the group is in the process of creating the activities. “The first book that we have is Tales of the Dairy Godmother, “ Hoak said. “It’s all about dairy and how ice cream is made. Our second book is called Right This Very Minute and it’s about the items we interact with every day and how agriculture relates to them.”

Hoak has been leading the effort so far, “but now we’re getting to the point where we’re starting to make some of the bigger decisions about the details and we’ll have a committee put together,” she said. 

At least seven students stayed to work on the committee “There is interest in our students — you can tell they’re passionate about this,” Hoak said. “The goal is to get students into the classrooms with kids so that we can talk about our experiences with agriculture and relate it to them.”

Hoak hopes to have 2 or 3 OSU students per classroom and continues to work on the details of the presentation. “I don’t know if we’re all going to go to one school and present to multiple classrooms, or we might have to do a couple of different days so that we can hit some different schools,” she said. “I’m not quite sure how it’s going to look yet.”

Since the development of the program in the fall of 2017, the American Farm Bureau has awarded more than 70 mini-grants through the Collegiate Farm Bureau Mini-Grant Program.