September 2022: AgrAbility PA Project Highlights
September started out with warm weather but ended with the Keystone state feeling the full effects of Fall – including cooler temperatures and rain. Here’s hoping everyone around the country is having a safe and successful harvest season.
Lights! Camera! Action!
AgrAbility PA is please to share a new anthemic video (think overview video with narrator) and 3 Farmer Testimonial videos featuring Jim Wright, Dennis & Lori Hunsberger, and Chelsi Shultz. Take a look at all of them on the AgrAbility PA YouTube channel. It’s so true…the farmers are the real stars of the show and what make this work meaningful.
New Ag Connections!
AgrAbility PA team members met with Andy Bater, a farmer who wears many hats in the agriculture community, to brainstorm about several AgrAbility activities. Andy is a member on the State Board of Directors for the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau, a State Committee Member for the USDA Farm Service Agency in PA, and a member of the Federal Communications Commission Precision Agriculture Task Force. The team was able to share information about AgrAbility, common barriers our clients face and discuss possible solutions. Discussions included mental health care and physical health care disparities in rural areas, lack of funding solutions for AT, and more. Andy provided a lot of great ideas, took the lead on multiple action items, and has been invited to join the AgrAbility Advisory Board. This was a great connection -- looking forward to future collaborations!
OT Round-up!
AgrAbility PA staffers Kendra Martin and Marci Walborn met with a few hundred occupational therapists (OT), included higher education programs for OT across the state, at the statewide POTA conference, Sept. 28-Oct. 1. The outreach event targeted OTs and those educating OTs in the state to share information and resources about AgrAbility. More than two programs requested follow-up presentations to be planned in future classes and coursework.
Say It Again!
Thanks to NAP for offering some repeats of popular sessions from the 2022 NTW in Wisconsin. Suzanna Windon’s presentation, “Managing Stress on the Farm,” and Kendra Martin’s collaborative presentation with Ohio, Kansas, and Maine, “Making Lemonade: When Outreach Events Hand You Lemons,” were both featured in September. Take a look at the sessions offered and click on the name of the session to view the presentation: http://www.agrability.org/agrability-national-training-workshop/2022/