“My grandfather used to say that once in your life you need a doctor, a lawyer, a policeman, and a preacher but every day, three times a day, you need a farmer.” -Brenda Schoepp. 

Since starting in 1985, Farm Day is long standing program in Christian County 4-H that is provided to all first-grade students in the Christian County Public School System, Private Schools, and Homeschool. For the 2019 Farm Day a total of 644 students and 93 teachers and volunteers attended during one of the two days offered and represented the 11 elementary schools found in Christian County. 

According to the Kentucky State Data Center, in the 2010 decennial census 69% of the population in Christian County reside in an urban setting while 31% are rural.  As a result, many of the youth in Christian County have not experienced a farm and do not know where their food comes from. In 2018, Farm Day was revamped to meet this need. Stations were designed to educate students on food products and/or services that come from each animal or grain. As the participants traveled through each station, the group leader collected an item that represented their station. After visiting each station, the student visited the “Farmer’s Market” where they learned about MyPlate and eating healthy. Along with learning where their food comes from, many of the adults and students learned about the agriculture resources that are found in Christian County, like the ethanol plant for instance. One of the first-grade teachers was quoted “Students enjoyed seeing and learning about new things. A lot of the students have never been to a farm or seen farm animals in person.”

In 2019 a matching worksheet of animal to it’s by product was delivered to each first-grade class. This same worksheet was then given to the students at the end of their Farm Day visit as a pre and post test evaluation. From these results the total average from the pretests was 96.33% . After attending the event and learning about where food comes from the posttest average increased to 98.11%. This evaluation indicated that students learned from their experience at Farm Day. 

To make Farm Day 2019 possible, a total of $2,000 was donated by Hutson Inc. in order to purchase supplies and t-shirts for all of the volunteers. Each student was provided a goodie bag filled with items that were donated by Kentucky Pork Producers, Kentucky Soybean Board, and Kentucky Beef Council.