A GROUP of mums have brought the New Zealand concept of ‘Calf Club Day’ to Kongorong in an effort to introduce farming to children and celebrate the town’s sense of community.
Kongorong Primary School supported the event, dubbed ‘Farm Day’, by integrating lamb and calf rearing topics into the classroom during the week leading up to the event; while also making arts, crafts and posters about farming and agriculture to display on the day.
Students were also given the opportunity to rear a calf or lamb over the past few months, before bringing them to ‘Farm Day’ where they competed in presenting, leading, calling and handling their animal – with prizes awarded to the winners.
Hilary Ellis, who helped organise the event, hopes to see ‘Farm Day’ become an annual fixture.
“It was so simple and fun, everyone enjoyed it,” she said.
“We had every old person from down the back paddock come along, we had the CFS there to encourage locals to join… we had one of the dads cooking a barbeque, a coffee machine, a jumping castle and one of the farmers brought down a heap of his own machinery just for atmosphere.”
While some money was raised through raffles and gold coin donations, raising money was not the focus of the event.
“The point was to get all kids involved in agriculture,” Ms Ellis said.
