The Agricultural Club and Collegiate young farmers held its  its annual Ag Fest and fundraiser at the Titmus Agricultural Center on Oct. 27.

Prior to Covid the event averaged more than 100 people but has since been smaller due to the pandemic.

“Before covid this was a really big event, 100 maybe 110,120 people, I don’t have the stats memorized from last year but it was small,” said professor Nancy Brubaker.

The students who put on the event faced large amounts of prep work to be able to host this festival, including a barn clean up lasting weeks.

“The students did all the work they organized it, they contacted the band, they got permissions by the school which was kind of the hardest part they got food donated set all this up and cleaned the barn, they cleaned the barn for three weeks to get it clean enough for this,” stated Brubaker.

Students who put on the event were ecstatic to see the fruits of their labor and thrilled at the chance of having new people exposed to their dedication and  passion.

“I’m really just excited to see a lot of new people come out to the farm and get to see everything and all of the work we put into this event and just have a good time,” said Stephanie Staats, senior.

On top of having a good time and celebrating the fall season, the students of the Ag Club want to reconnect and reestablish their bond with the community.

“I know for sure the Ag club had a lot of community engagement before Covid. They had a lot of events up at the barn or just community events where people would come out, so I want to get that community feel back to us and to Titmus and get people learning about us and the Ag Club,” Staats said.

The students were also taking the opportunity to talk to the younger generation at the festival and help open their eyes to the world of agriculture.

“I’m looking forward to the Agroween (following diner) just being able to talk to kids and teach them about agriculture, just be able to share that knowledge with younger generations and pass on some of our passion for a topic we care about,” said Richard Marshall freshman.

A local business by the name of the Lazy Acres Angus donated the beef for the event as a way to help build the agriculture community.

“We do some work with the Ferrum Ag Club, so we’re trying to help them support the agriculture community here at Ferrum,” said Jason Thurman of Lazy Acres.

The club’s main struggle has been recovering from Covid and building back to what they were before the pandemic–not only from a community standpoint and being involved there, but also from within with their new members.

“Coming back form Covid has been difficult from an active side. You see members that don’t necessarily know how to participate with one another and socialize. With that Covid year ,we lost a lot of connection with the community and just trying to get back the communication has been hard,” said Ryan Gobble, senior, and Ag Club president.