Urbandale, IA Living History Farms today announced it has received $5,000 from Hy-Vee, to support the museum's Foodways program, which helps the more than 130,000 annual visitors to the Farms to explore what the changing pursuit of food reveals about life for Ioway Indians in 1700, for homesteaders in 1850, for people in a small 1875 farming town and for Iowa farmers in 1900.
"Hy-Vee is a perfect partner for us in offering this fascinating program," said Ruth Haus, President of Living History Farms. "Most of us today are pretty far removed from the sources of our food. Hy-Vee is an important partner in helping these visitors to better understand the increasingly complicated processes that lead to the appearance of packaged foods on grocery shelves."
An important segment of Living History Farms' annual visitors is the more than 33,000 students, teachers and chaperones who fill the 1875 town of Walnut Hill and three farm sites wanting to learn more about their ancestors and how they lived many centuries before ipods, cell phones, grocery stores and fast food. Through the Foodways program, LHF is able to offer unique hands-on activities that relate the history of food production to life today.
"There's nothing like learning about history first-hand. Living History Farms takes what students learn in their textbooks and brings it to life," says Haus.
Living History Farms is an interactive outdoor museum which educates, entertains and connects people of all ages to Midwestern rural life experiences. Set on 500 acres in Urbandale, Iowa, Living History Farms is an outdoor history museum with three working farms - a 1700 Ioway Indian Farm, 1850 Pioneer Farm and a 1900 Horse-Powered Farm. Historical interpreters in period clothing authentically farm and work each site, and provide a unique learning environment of seasonal activities and demonstrations that go beyond the traditional classroom experience.
In addition to the farm sites, students get to visit businesses, trade sites and homes typical of an 1875 town including a one-room schoolhouse, general store, blacksmith and print shop. Living History Farms also offers Outreach Programs where one of the historic interpretive staff visits a hosting school.
"There is a compelling story to be told about how food gets from the field to our stores' shelves-and the ways in which that story has changed over the years has relevance for all of us today," says Erin Zimmerman, Hy-Vee's Assistant Vice President for Communications. "Living History Farms does a good job of telling that story and we are pleased to be partners with the Farms in this exciting endeavor."
Visit the Hy-Vee website at www.Hy-Vee.com.