Garfield Farm honors 2012 award winners

Submitted by Garfield Farm Museum

The 2012 Garfield Farm Museum Awards dinner and reception will be held at 6 p.m. Saturday, April 28. Awards winners are Heritage Prairie Farm of Elburn, Dr. Paul Sorensen of DeKalb, and Geneva residents Sheila Penrose and Ernie Mahaffey.

The dinner will be held at Dunham Woods Riding Club, 33W333 Army Trail Road in Wayne. Fee is $50 for dinner or $5 for just the awards ceremony. Reservations are required by Monday, April 23. Call (630) 584-8485 or info@garfieldfarm.org.

Garfield Farm Museum’s three themes of history, farming and the environment are annually celebrated by recognizing groups or individuals that share such common interests by their actions and deeds. For 24 years, these awards are to pay tribute and draw attention to the awardees and their impact on the community, region or nation.

Heritage Prairie Farm, within sight of Garfield Farm Museum on Brundige Road and Route 38, founded by Bronwyn Weaver and Robert Archibald, has demonstrated a successful model of bringing the consumer in touch with the source of their food. At the same time they have provided a market for other local food producers to get their bounty to a public that seeks more knowledge about their food. Garfield Farm Museum is pleased to give the Heritage Prairie Farm an agricultural preservation award for its work.

Over the 24 years of presenting these awards, there have been a gratifying number of candidates through the years. Not all years have a winner in each of the categories; some years there are multiple winners. Compared to 35 years ago when these fields of preservation were just becoming viable, there have been great strides in each, albeit at different paces at different times. Garfield Farm Museum’s boards, Garfield Heritage Society and Campton Historic Agricultural Lands, wish to encourage such efforts by bringing them to the public’s attention, demonstrating positive steps in an ever-challenging era of rapid change.