The SHSU Brock and Bridle Club kicked off its ninth annual Children’s Barn function yesterday at the Agricultural Center Indoor Arena. Activities continue today from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Brock and Bridle Treasurer Brian Delist said that Children’s Barn is designed to “tell kids more about animal agriculture and where the food and other products we get comes from.”
A petting zoo is one of the event’s biggest attractions with animals including horses, cattle, donkeys and goats, all of which have been donated by locals for the event. Also, the goat that the Brock and Bridle Club have been attempting to name via student voting will make an appearance.
“We use the animals to teach the kids where some of the stuff we get comes from. We tell them ‘this cow is where we get our milk, our steak and our hamburger,’ and we also tell them about the other by products that we get from them like leather,” said Delist.
Also included in the event are several stations around the arena set up to inform children of other various products that are gathered from agriculture.
“We have popcorn stations where we tell them about corn and how we get a lot of other by products from corn like toothpaste and corn starch. We also have a dairy station where they get ice cream, and we talk to them about dairy products and a station set up in the greenhouse area where the kids can plant little seedlings,” said Delist.
Delist said that the best part of it all is that it “gets kids a little more educated and interested in agriculture and helps them not to think that food just magically comes from the grocery store. It lets them know that there are people that take care of these animals and grow these plants.”
Response to the event has been positive.
“It’s something we have fun putting on every year. We get a lot of good responses from schools and the faculty and they really like it. We have nearly 2000 kids come every year from elementary schools in Huntsville and Conroe,” said Delist.
For more information about Children’s Barn contact Dr. Marcy Beverly at 294-1222.