Community Outreach

Agriculture Awareness Day

Since its establishment in 2009, Ag Awareness Day events at the Southern Piedmont AREC have grown into highly anticipated annual educational opportunities for third and fifth graders. This award-winning program now draws students from Nottoway, Lunenburg, Brunswick, Mecklenburg, Dinwiddie, Amelia, and Prince Edward counties.

For third graders, there are 15 diverse learning stations where they can participate in hands-on activities such as paper making, vermicomposting, using simple machines, and milking dairy cows.

Fifth graders engage in learning about the math and science behind baking bread, along with taking part in various hands-on activity stations covering topics such as animal cells, DNA, oobleck, and the apple/earth.

The Ag Awareness Day events are made possible by the invaluable support and dedication of volunteers, staff, and community partners including :

• Brickland Hatchery 
• Central Piedmont Master Naturalists
• Fort Barfoot
• King Arthur Baking Company  
• Piedmont Soil & Water Conservation District
• Richlands Dairy & Creamery
• Rocky Hills Farm LLC
• Society of St. Andrew - Virginia
• The Dairy Alliance
• Triple R Dairy
  
• USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service
• Virginia Agricultural Experiment Station
• Virginia Cooperative Extension
• Nottoway FFA Chapter
• Virginia Department of Forestry
• Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources
• Virginia Farm Bureau Federation
• WestRock

Family and Farm Day

Family and Farm Day is held each year in mid-September. Everyone is welcome to enjoy the fun in a family atmosphere while learning about Virginia’s largest and oldest industry, AGRICULTURE.  Test your navigating skills in the corn maze. Express your artistic abilities making grain art and pine cone bird feeders. See sheep, goats, cows, chickens, and alpacas. Milk a cow, hold a live fish, learn how bees make honey and about spinning yarn. See what we make from peanuts, soybeans, corn, wheat, and cotton. Food is available on the premises.