NEWELL—What better way to teach about animals than to offer a bunch of sweet, loving animals for the public to pet and feed? That is exactly what the Newell FFA did on Saturday, Feb. 21, at its petting zoo.
As a kickoff event for National FFA Week, the club set up the event for the public to attend.
“So it’s National FFA Week starting Sunday, and we didn’t feel like doing anything Sunday, so we wanted to do it today. We normally do the petting zoo at the school, but we wanted more community involvement, so we took it down here to the rodeo grounds,” explained Newell FFA President Rowdy Wetz.
The event hoped to use the animals to attract kids and introduce them to the FFA. They hauled in a lot of animals for the event but primarily focused on animals that one would find on a ranch. “We have donkeys, we have a pretty big mule, American Quarter Horses — two of them! And then some turkeys, a sheep, a goat and a cow,” said Wetz.
The activity is meant to be a learning experience for all of those involved. “I think it introduces them to what livestock is about, bringing in the culture of what ranchers do by showing them what we raise and what our production produces in the end and what the beginning might be,” explained Rachel Stranberg, Newell FFA reporter. “We’ve got a little lamb, a little goat, and they show from the beginning to the end. We’ve got a nice set of lambs, from the ewe to the lamb, and it kind of just presents what beginning start is, and then we get to the end result of a mom being able to reproduce and being able to show those kids what the rancher life is like.”
Many of the animals at the FFA petting zoo were animals that belonged to Newell FFA members. “A lot of the animals are from our FFA members, but we do have one who we called out to ask to bring the miniature donkey—that’s John, so he brought out the miniature donkeys for us,” shared Stranberg.
In past years, the petting zoo was held at Newell School. Moving locations gave the FFA members practice in how to find and arrange a new location and set up a community activity. “So it also helps us to use our words to speak up and ask—hey, can we use this spot? We’ve had to ask the community to use this place instead of the school and then being able to accept the fact that we had to do it on a different day,” said Stranberg.
Newell FFA Chapter has a whole host of fun activities planned to celebrate National FFA Week.
Wetz explained, “Monday, it is red versus green and also drive your tractor to school day.”
“Tuesday, the 24th, is red, white and blue day—and that’s going to be a trivia hunt as well,” added Stranberg.
The fun continues all week. “Wednesday, we have what we call Ag Olympics for high school, middle school and elementary—get those kids and have some fun! As well as teachers—can’t forget about them,” said Wetz. “And that dress-up day is Western.”
“And then you get into Thursday, Feb. 26, with blue and gold day, and then coloring contest, which is involving the middle school and high school—and we kind of round it out there,” said Stranberg. “We do get into Friday, where we do a teacher breakfast—our officers will come in and make breakfast for them as they do have a teacher in service. We round out the week for the teachers as a thank you to them.”
The petting zoo and all of the activities planned to highlight National FFA Week are all aimed at one basic purpose: “get kids excited for FFA as well as agriculture,” explained Wetz.
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