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Monday, March 18
The Indiana Daily Student

Children's Farm Festival provides hands-on experience

Sitting by the barn, chatting with the volunteers as they sip their coffee and snack on donuts was what Joe Peden described as one of the most peaceful parts of his day.

Peden, whose farm is home to the Children’s Farm Festival each year, said sitting in the silence with the volunteers is one of the “happy” times.

Then comes the exciting time.

Gradually, big, yellow school buses line up for a quarter mile down the road to unload thousands of people onto his farm.

The Children’s Farm Festival is an annual event that allows local children in preschool through third grade to get a hands-on farm ?experience.

Children could cuddle baby ducks, chickens and rabbits and visit about 100 stops throughout the farm to learn about topics ranging from energy sources to butter churning.

The farm has been in Monroe County for decades but has been in the Peden family since 1941. Throughout the years, the family has raised corn, soybeans, pigs and beef cattle.

Peden said the Children’s Farm Festival began back in the early 1950s, when his parents hosted a few area schools at their farm on Maple Grove Road. From there, the event expanded.

Now the Monroe County 4-H Extension Office handles the reservations, covering the average of 2,000 visitors that pass through the farm during the two-day event.

Tuesday’s crowd, which enjoyed 1,800 to 2,000 bags of fresh popcorn, was just the tip of the iceberg, Peden said.

“We usually expect three times the people on Wednesday as we do on Tuesday,” he added. “We use about a 20-acre field that we park full of cars.”

Approximately 280 volunteers, including 40 Monroe County 4-H junior leaders and 40 members of Future Farmers of America, from Monroe and neighboring counties participated in the event, parking cars, introducing the children to animals and leading the 14 hayrides.

Volunteers started working at 6:30 a.m., popping about 150 pounds of popcorn and readying the farm for the groups of children that Peden said startled neighboring farms throughout the afternoon.

“We like to see the kids having a great time, and it’s an educational experience that we try to provide,” he said. “To see them just happy and yelling and the light in their eyes and their voices as they go to various stations, well, you can just stand and watch them and watch how happy they are.”

Peden said one of the best things about having had visitors on his farm throughout the years is when parents who visited the farm as children bring their own kid back.

“It makes you feel like you made a difference,” he said.

In a time when the number of farms is decreasing, Peden gives local children who would otherwise not have a farm experience the chance to see what it’s all about.

“Where would you go touch and feel the fur of a rabbit or the down of a duck or the feathers of a chicken?” he asked. “Where are you going to taste butter that’s just been hand-churned? When are you going to be able to compare bantam eggs and ostrich eggs in size and weight?”

Their day at the farm encompasses more than a visit to the zoo or even the county fair, Peden said. Providing children the chance to cut stone with a stone cutter or wear a hard hat allows them to experience new things first-hand.

“Those things there, as you go down the line, you’re going to be able to touch and feel everything there,” he said.

Though he said Tuesday’s events left him in need of nap, Peden will rise Wednesday to host countless other students, parents and teachers that come to explore his family farm.

Despite enjoying the quiet times, Peden said he loves the louder times and seeing the excited faces of those surrounding him.

“It’s just a great big playground of happiness for the kids,” he said.

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