High praise and crucial cash raised at ADC gala

The gym at Irvine School was packed full for the Agriculture Discovery Centre’s second annual Fall Production and Harvest Sale. The gala event raised $30,677 during the evening with all funds to be invested into new programming and initiatives for students at Irvine School.

Student MCs for the evening were Heather Vossler, vice president of the student executive for the ADC, along with Parker Bellamy, who each relayed amusing anecdotes about happenings at the ADC over the past year, before the formal speeches began.

Prairie Rose Public Schools superintendent Reagan Weeks spoke and gave praise to ADC’s creator.

“This incredible learning experience that has been created takes community,” said Weeks. “It also takes vision and, as you know, (ADC founder) Nichole Neubauer has that in spades. Congratulations, you did it again. You brought this transformative learning experience to life.

“One key factor the ADC addresses that we don’t often talk about is that it builds connection, belonging, a network and a team. That’s inoculation against sadness, depression and isolation.”

During Neubauer’s speech, she spoke of welcoming more than 150 students to the ADC from River Heights and Dr. Roy Wilson schools. The organizers decided to spend the entire day in Irvine to visit the museum, library, volunteer firehall and have ice cream at the muffin shop.

“It was a fantastic day to showcase the amazing things that happen down in Irvine and in this great community,” stated Neubauer. “On more than one occasion a teacher came up to me to say, ‘Wow, I had no idea there were so many cool things here in Irvine.’

“Anytime we can build a program that helps galvanize our rural communities and also invites others to come in and share things that we already know are so great, it’s a wonderful opportunity to celebrate.”

A short video of images from the past year of students participating in the first Ag-Pro careers and technology option at Western Tractor preceded teacher Logyn Jacksteit’s speech. He also discussed what are now normal scenarios at Irvine School.

“One of our incredible students, who happens to be sitting up here, Heather Vossler, brought one of our baby goats into school this week with a diaper on … Everyone heard a goat down the hallway and not one singular teacher thought it was weird. That’s what’s funny about it, it’s just another goat in our school.” Scott Hershmiller from Western Tractor followed. “Seeing the student’s interaction, focus, reaction and involvement was priceless,” he stated. “It (Ag-Pro CTF) can help them choose classes in the future to help them get the career they really want to be in. John Deere has made a significant investment in R&D and are making huge advancements in technology and in digital farming.

“It’s going to change the way we farm and ultimately the way we feed our families. It’s more important than ever that our youth are ready for what is coming today in the agriculture industry. Science and technology are merging to create a massive change that is going to come at us at a very fast pace.

“John Deere has already brought to our attention that we’ll see five times the technology five times faster than we are used to. Let’s have our children ready for what is to come and show them the opportunities that lie ahead for each individual.”

A representative from EQUS was also at the event. Neubauer explained that the ADC has received funding of near $25,000 from an employee-led initiative called EQUS Community Connection. The funding will be used to develop curriculum-linked agri-food toolkits that will be shared with educators across the regions of Medicine Hat, Innisfail, Claresholm and other communities EQUS serves. Kits will also be developed for Irvine staff and students and will be a way to bring the ADC to students who aren’t able to make the journey to visit.

“Community is one of our values at EQUS,” said Melinda Paplawski. “It’s important to raise funds that stay in our communities … we were all very clear immediately that Nichole would get anything done … we loved the idea of bringing hands-on connection to food supply and agriculture and sustainability into classrooms.”