The Friday Finish – August 16, 2024
Red Bird Impact at the Kentucky State Fair
The core of our mission statement reads, “…guided by Jesus Christ, creates opportunities for individuals to enrich their lives and positively impact others…” The 2024 Kentucky State Fair opened yesterday and this week’s Friday Finish features two stories where our mission is helping our community members make a positive impact at the state fair.
“Minding your own beeswax” Can Be Good Business
“Mind your own beeswax,” is generally a negative comment but for Leslie and Jimmie Sizemore it means expanding the family business. They volunteer at the Kentucky Beekeepers Association display at the Kentucky State Fair giving them the opportunity to help promote their craft as beekeepers and to sell their products in Louisville at the state fair.
Jimmie and Leslie wanted to expand their products at the fair to include beeswax ointment available for sale under the Smallwood/Crawford Farms brand but they didn’t have the facility at their homestead to meet state health requirements for sale to the public. That’s where the Red Bird Valley Kitchen solved their predicament by providing a kitchen to make their product to meet the public health law requirements. Last week, Jimmie and Leslie completed their application and began using the Red Bird Valley Kitchen so their product could be delivered to the state fair before opening day.
State Fair Student Art and Photography
Mrs. Rebecca Smallwood leads art throughout Red Bird Christian School and several students will have art on display at the Kentucky State Fair August 15-25 in Louisville, Kentucky. Elementary, middle school and high school students completed 47 projects for evaluation in the following categories:
Art – Acrylic Painting, Trends, Drawings, Water Color, Sculpting, Home Environment, and Needlework (Small and Intermediate Crochet)
Photography – Agriculture: Crops, Life Cycle, Farm Equipment and Companion Animal
Natural Resources: Forest
Art and photography projects of the Grand Champions in each category are displayed at the state fair. Red Bird Art Grand Champions are Shelby Davis (2 projects), Arraya Salyers (2 projects), Matthew Henson, Sarah Fee, Layla Estep and Addison Cornett (3 projects). Addison also had three Grand Champion projects in Photography. Gage Gibson and Chaz Brumel also had one Photography project each to qualify as Grand Champion.
Other Red Bird students that received Blue Ribbons for their projects were as follows:
Art – Braxton Asher, Bryson Smith, Charlie Gray, Hayden Jackson, Kaden Brock, Lexia Miller, Reuben Cornelison, Taylor Parsley
Photography – Gage Gibson, Del Brumel, Reuben Cornelison and Morgan Oetzel.
Digital Safety and Navigation for Our Senior Adults
Marsha Roark, Red Bird Broadband Coordinator, is continuing to build on recent success at
Red Bird to organize more opportunities to help improve the digital literacy in our community. She recruited Daniel Nick, a Red Bird school graduate, to help teach a series of digital literacy classes at the DeWall Senior Center on the Beverly Campus and at the Red Bird Mission Elderly Housing apartments on the Queendale Campus.
Seniors began Tuesday at the DeWall Senior Center with the first of 5 classes learning about internet privacy, how to tell if a website is secure, when it is okay to save a password, and how to navigate different websites.
Summer Harvests Bountiful; Fall Gardens Start
Watermelon and pumpkin harvests added to the excitement of the first full week of classes at Red Bird Christian School. Red Bird STEAM students in the Ag Science pathway got to see the results of spring plantings when they pulled watermelons, ornamental pumpkins and other summer vegetables on Thursday. The timing of the harvest was to take advantage of market day this morning at the Red Bird Farmers Market. Once schedules and permissions are worked out, students will have the opportunity to actually be present to make sales at the market.
Local gardens are at peak production this month and the first hour of sales today was described as “fast and furious” by staff. One factor that is driving demand of corn, tomatoes and beans is the Kentucky Double Dollars for low income senior citizens. Red Bird Farmers Market is the only market open in Clay County right now that is issuing and redeeming Double Dollars to help our elderly in these times of inflation and high prices.
The families taking advantage of the Red Bird Valley Kitchen’s commercial facilities keeps growing. Tracy Nolan, Community Outreach Director, reported that a new user household came last week to preserve 17 quart jars of tomatoes for personal use after the summer harvest is over.
The Red Bird Grow Appalachia Project families are still going strong with good attendance at their monthly educational meetings. Members picked up cabbage and other cole crops to set out for fall production.
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