National AgrAbility Project

Join us in Billings for an AgrAbility Regional Workshop !!! Hotel reservations close on 7/18. A link to the agenda and registration can be found on the NAP website HERE.

The regional event in Billings is being coordinated in conjunction with the Western Region Agricultural Stress Assistance Program.

The first two days of presentations will focus on farm stress and mental health, working with tribal nations and veterans, adaptive tools and technology, and worksite assessment. The third day will feature tours of local agricultural businesses.

Federal per diem nightly rate of $96 is available at the Billings Hotel and Convention Center through 7/18/21. Rooms can be reserved by clicking hotel name above, choose "Book Now", check "Rate Options" and go to "Promotional/Group Code" and type in the group code GWF08.

Do you live and work in the Western portion of the United States and/or territory? Are you interested in attending the Regional Training Workshop in Billings? If so, please go to farmstress.us and fill out a WRASAP professional development grant application. Funds are available.

For questions about the workshop or to host a regional workshop in conjunction with Goodwill and NAP, please contact National AgrAbility partners at Goodwill:
Tess McKeel: tmckeel@goodwillfingerlakes.org or
JoBeth Rath: jbrath@goodwillfingerlakes.org

Submitted by Goodwill of the Finger Lakes

The National Amish Handicap [sic] Gathering was held in Shipshewana, Indiana, June 4-5. Due to years of relationship- and trust-building by Purdue AgrAbility and Extension staff, Purdue's National AgrAbility Project (NAP) was the only outside organization to have a booth at the event. Chuck Baldwin, NAP's underserved populations outreach coordinator, along with Ned Stoller, NAP's assistive technology specialist, and Erin Gick, occupational therapy doctoral student from Huntington University serving an internship with the NAP, staffed the booth.

Roughly 500 Amish, all of them impacted by disability personally or through their family, attended the Gathering. The purpose of the annual Gathering is for those who come to encourage each other in their faith and to share what is working and what is not working for them as caregivers to those with disabilities among them. The Handicap Gathering rotates annually from Indiana to Pennsylvania to Ohio, and every fourth year it is open to any state with an Amish population that cares to host the event. The 2022 Handicap Gathering is scheduled to be held at the Martindale Fellowship Center in Ephrata, Pennsylvania.

Ned Stoller, a Purdue grad in agricultural engineering, brought several pieces of assistive technology to the Gathering to share with the Amish ideas of what can be done to help those with disabilities have a higher quality of life. A talking tape-measure/inclinometer garnered a lot of interest, particularly from two Amish teenagers who were both legally blind. A foldable garden kneeling bench and several different pieces of assistive technology designed to help people with weakness in their hand/wrist/forearm grip objects for work were also displayed and demonstrated.

The National AgrAbility Project's underserved populations outreach coordinator, Chuck Baldwin, and Ohio AgrAbility's PI, Dee Jepsen, staffed an AgrAbility booth July 2-3, 2021, at the Horse Progress Days event in Mt. Hope, Ohio. Mt. Hope is located in Holmes County, home to the world's largest Amish community where farming is still done with horses.

The purpose of Horse Progress Days, according to its mission statement, is: "To encourage and promote the combination of animal power and the latest equipment innovations in an effort to support sustainable small-scale farming and land stewardship. To show draft animal power is possible, practical and profitable." This year was the 27th annual event and, over the two-day period, it drew an estimated crowd of 35,000-40,000 attendees from across the United States and from several other countries as well. An estimated 70% of those attendees historically have been from Amish or other Plain communities.

Many different breeds of draft horses were shown, along with ponies, mules, and oxen, and most were used in harness to demonstrate plowing, tillage, haymaking, farming, logging, and more. Demonstrations were given throughout the event of different hitch configurations from single up to six- and even eight-horse hitches.

AgrAbility was one of hundreds of exhibitors and vendors that were housed in two very large buildings on the Mt. Hope Auction grounds. Customer flow was excellent, giving the opportunity for Chuck and Dee to talk and demonstrate assistive technology to around 10 people per hour with many more coming through the booth and watching or listening as explanations were given. Several potential clients from different States requested help from AgrAbility and are being followed up by AgrAbility staff from Purdue as well as staff from some other states in which the customers live.

Submitted by Chuck Baldwin