The 2016 Nothing Could Be Finer NC State Fair

This year the North Carolina Chapter had the opportunity to raise money for our organization by working at one of the booths at the 2016 NC State Fair. We partnered with the North Carolina Soybean Association and were in charge of taking care of a booth located inside the Got To Be NC Agriculture Tent. There were multiple five-hour shifts throughout each day of the fair that we volunteered for and our chapter participated in all of the night shifts and a couple of the day shifts as well. The booth consisted of white boards with pictures of farms and animals on them and we provided washable markers so that anyone who wanted to could color in the pictures. The booth also had a cutout board of a farmer on a tractor that people could stick their head through and take a picture as the farmer. Our job while working the booth was to make sure no words or profanity was written on the boards and to wipe off the board every now and then so that more people could color. We gave out handouts that contained some fun information about soybeans and what they’re used for to the children coloring and any passersby. This opportunity was very rewarding in that it was an activity that adults and children could participate in and we could easily see the spark of interest in agriculture in a lot of those kids that had fun coloring. We were able to reach out to many diverse groups of people and teach them about agriculture where some of them might not have any type of exposure to agriculture otherwise. The final attendance for the State Fair ended up being 1,028,364 people, which is a lot of people that we were able to agvocate towards! Hopefully next year we will be able to partner with the NC Soybean Association again and reach even more people and be able to educate them about agriculture and its impact on our daily lives.