Annie’s Challenge, a nationwide non-profit to teach and empower ladies in agriculture, is celebrating 20 years since its founding. As we speak, this system has over 19,000 graduates throughout 38 states and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Annie’s Challenge is an training program for girls in agriculture and makes use of a technique that builds confidence, develops networks and creates lifelong learners amongst ladies farmers, ranchers, growers, landowners, and agriculturalists.
The inaugural class of 10 ladies met in February 2003 in Centralia, IL, and a number of other members of the group gathered once more for a digital assembly through Zoom to share reminiscences of these early conferences and the impression Annie’s Challenge has had on their farms and lives this month to commemorate the milestone.
Annie’s Challenge relies on the lifetime of a farm lady, Annie Fleck, who spent her lifetime studying the best way to be an concerned enterprise companion together with her husband. She died in 1997 and was the inspiration for her daughter, Ruth Fleck Hambleton, to create Annie’s Challenge in 2003. Hambleton was a Farm Enterprise Administration and Advertising Educator for College of Illinois Extension on the time.
“Watching Mother and every part she did gave me great empathy for what ladies had been going by on the farm operation,” says Hambleton.
In Annie’s Challenge lessons, educated facilitators present secure harbor, connection, discovery, and shared experiences. Vetted instructors and presenters ship unbiased research-based info to small, dynamic teams of ladies.
The core of Annie’s Challenge are two programs that handle the 5 areas of threat recognized by USDA. The “Managing for As we speak and Tomorrow” course addresses growing enterprise plans, retirement, succession, transition and property planning. “Know Your Numbers – Know Your Choices” takes a deeper dive into monetary literacy.
“Impressed by Annie’s” programs have been added that target explicit pursuits of an viewers, conferences, or hands-on occasions.
Further occasions are being deliberate to have fun the twentieth anniversary, with updates supplied at www.anniesproject.org or on Fb. Sponsors can contact doris@anniesproject.org to study methods to be a part of the initiative and the celebration.
For a current Turf Journal article entitled, “Mission Unstoppable: Girls in Bushes,” click on right here.