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Mobile “agri-cation” centre ready for fall fair
Tuesday September 2 2008
By RICHARD VIVIAN Banner Staff Writer
 
Local “agri-cation” has a new home — actually a new mobile home. The Shelburne District Agricultural Society will launch its new learning centre at the Farmapalooza event during this year’s fall fair.
“It’s going to be a place where the animals can be if we have a real cold day or a wet day or something,” says Marian Webb, chair of the agricultural awareness committee. “As it was, they were just out in the elements and we had to go running around to see if we could find something to put over them for shade.”
Referred to as the “little red bard,” the centre sits on a trailer and can be moved wherever needed. It features four animal pens with a walkway for its young visitors, along with fencing that can be set up around the barn for an expanded petting zoo area — weather permitting.
Additional animals in cages can be put up on a shelf, where there’s electricity for heat lamps and other required equipment.
An accessibility ramp has been included, as well as room for a wheelchair to turn around. There’s also a spot for educational materials to be set up for people to take with them.
A new centre has been on the agricultural awareness committee’s wish list for several years, but it is finally a reality.
The fair has featured a petting zoo area for children the last several years but having the new mobile centre will make things easier.
“It’s always been a problem at fair time finding a place to do this. We’d conflict with other shows going on,” Ken

Phillips, fair board chair, says of the petting zoo. Because of circumstance, it was often required to relocate each day of the fair. “We were always in a mad scramble trying to get a place.”
A more permanent home for the committee’s education activities was made possible by a $12,200 grant from the Trillium Foundation, which was received in March. Phillips says that grant covers all the involved costs.

The centre will be loaned out, free of charge, to other fairs in the area — a component of the Trillium grant — once it’s been launched in Shelburne.
“It’s legal on the road, if and when we’ve got to move it somewhere,” Phillips says.
The Shelburne Fall Fair runs Sept. 9 to 14 at the fairgrounds on William Street. For more information about the “agri-cation” centre or the fall fair, visit www.shelburnefair.com.