Polk county meets on the second Monday of each month at 11:30 AM at the Eola Inn, Rock n Rogers Restaurant in west Salem. All are welcome to join us!
Arlene Kovash traveled to two AAW events this year, (the Mid-Year Meeting and Fly In), and Deb Thomas helped with Ag Fest.
Our monthly meetings have been focused on gaining new members and brainstorming goals for the year. We recently had guest speaker Emily Gluckin, from Polk Tourism Alliance, share with us grant opportunities in Polk county, through Travel Oregon. Our group was inspired to look at ways to promote agriculture and OWA in our county!
Since our Constitutional Essay Contest had only one entry last year. We have decided to change the essay format to a presentation format. Students are more connected to social media and youtube than essays. Tiffany Marx asked her daughter Cameron to poll her classmates regarding the contest. Based on their input we will restructure the contest and offer the updated version in September, when students return to school.
We will have a booth at the Polk County Fair, August 10th through August 12th. We will also help the fairgrounds with their passport program for children and adults. We will be using our display board “Agriculture Needs You” detailing just a few of the many jobs available in agriculture. We have brochures that go along with the display. Polk County OWA members, Danielle Meyersick and Mallory Lucas created the display and brochure. They did an awesome job! Benton county OWA has asked to use the display for their fair too. We welcome getting the information out, so please let us know if you’d like to borrow it for an event!
Another idea we hope to finalize at our July meeting is a promotional flyer/postcard to be used during the eclipse in August. Ideas included a map of hotspots in Polk county, ag facts and a link to the OWA website.
Have a great summer!
Diann Washburn, President