Star-Journbal Editor
Country kids and city kids might be passing each other on the highway Saturday morning, en route to new and exciting things to do.
Country kids will be going to the city, to the movies or the malls. City kids will be going to the 11th annual Day on the Farm celebration at the farm of Carol Duerksen and Maynard Knepp, northeast of Goessel.
Day on the Farm, from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m., will give children from urban areas a chance to ride horses, milk goats, hold baby pigs, and do lots of other fun things for the first time.
"Children don't have contact with animals anymore," said Knepp, who co-hosts the event with his wife, Carol Duerksen.
"Agri-Urban wanted a place to introduce the city to the farm. At Agri-Urban they raise thousands and thousands of dollars for various charities."
While admission is free, event sponsor Mennonite Agri-Urban, Inc., uses the rustic setting to raise funds for Bethel College, Mennonite Western District Conference, and Mennonite Church, USA.
In the Agri-Urban program, farmers and cattle feeders donate labor, feed or pasture to fatten cattle, with urbanites donating money to buy the animals and the feed.
The Day on the Farm is a way to bring the urban and rural interests together.
"We don't get very many local people," Knepp said. "It's city people that come out, you know. It's kind of a grandparents-grandkids type of event.
"Hopefully we can get the granddad to buy a steer and team up with some farmer, who'll feed it for a year and sell it for funds for charity."
Getting the most fun out of fund-raising are children who get to touch farm animals and see llamas, emus, and even a buffalo calf. They also can watch rope making, take tractor wagon rides, watch a branding iron demonstration, and climb through a bale maze.
Scheduled events include pig catching by ministers at 11 a.m., lunch at 11:30 a.m., and a children's story at 12:45 p.m.
According to Duerksen, the Day on the Farm program can help grandparents and grandchildren connect both relationally and spiritually.
A shared experience in the country can build a common bond with deep spiritual overtones, she added.
"There's not going to be a lot of talk about God here," Duerksen said. "But I think anytime there are positive connections made between people of all ages that there's spirituality involved.
"They go home and they say we did this, or we did that; it gives them conversation points. To me that's all part of spirituality."
Everyone is invited to the Day on the Farm activities.
The farm is located at 1582 Falcon Road. To get there from Hillsboro, take Indigo Road four miles south of the city to 150th. Turn west and drive three miles to Falcon, go north about three-quarters of a mile. The farm is on the right.
