Back to the future with 4H and FFA

Image via WikipediaSince it's Ed Week here at LOVESalem, here's an example of the kind of thing we should be doing significantly more of, in every school, every year, not just a few weeks in the summer for the rural kids: helping kids learn about the environment, also known as nature, also known as "where everything you eat must start."

The 4H programs and Future Farmers of America programs are especially vital now that the world is learning, to its dismay, that there is no magic pixie dust that allows us to keep adding people to a finite planet without having to search harder for resources and fight over them more.

Our agricultural ignorance is what allows us to be sold policies that starve people in poor countries so that we can squander vast resources while pretending to create "renewable" fuels by turning petroleum-based agricrops into ethanol (while exhausting and depleting the soils and damaging rivers and the atmosphere).

In the future, one of the most important skills will be knowing how to manage food crops in harmony with the natural local cycles and traits. The 1500 mile salad is likely to be as long gone as the dodo bird -- we will, perforce, whether we want to or not, be "locavores" to a great extent. Our schools should be doing a lot more to make sure that we can actually thrive while doing so.

The members of the Oregon State Fair Foundation would be honored to have you attend the ribbon cutting for the Oregon Youth Village. We want to take this time to thank our supporters, past board members, donors, and grantors. We also want to welcome the public to come and find out about the Oregon Youth Village.

Please join us for the all day celebration...

7:00 am Public Tours Start

12:00 Ribbon Cutting Ceremony - with Mayor Anna Peterson

7:00 pm Public Tours End

The Oregon State Fair Foundation is pleased to announce the official ribbon cutting for the first of 25 Oregon Youth Village Cabins on the Oregon State Fair Grounds. These cabins will house the 4H and FFA youths during State Fair each summer. OSFF would be honored if you would join us on Friday, June 24th 2011. Public tours of the cabin start at 7am. We have featured speakers, and several legislative and other community leaders in a video presentation throughout the day. Cabin tours for the public will continue until 7pm.

For more information please see our website at www.oregonstatefairfoundation.org.

Please call 503-779-4152 for more information.