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Earthfest Event Coming to North Guilford

With warm spring weather on its way, students and families at the North Guilford Nursery School (NGNS) plan to celebrate the season and the environment with their first Earthfest celebration and Cow Chip Raffle on Saturday, April 23 at Dudley Farm Museum.

NGNS, which was founded in 1955, is one of the oldest nursery schools in Guilford and offers programming for children aged 2 to 5. The school’s new Earthfest celebration is focused on Earth Day and will help teach the students about their environment, according to NGNS Board Chair Amanda Waggoner.

“We will have lots of activities for kids and demonstrations that will teach the children about recycling, sustainability, energy conservation, and supporting your local community,” she said.

Activities will include a live bee hive for kids to learn about making honey, an opportunity to tag horseshoe crabs, and learning about countertop composting.

Sponsors for the event include NGNS, Dudley Farm, and Half Mile Acre Farms. Throughout the day there will activities, demonstrations, vendors, food trucks, and live music, but Waggoner said the big event will be the Cow Chip Raffle.

“There will be a pasture marked off with one-square-foot parcels,” she said. “At 1 p.m. on the day of the event, we will be letting Bessie, a cow provided by Half Mile Acres Farm, enter into the pasture to graze and eventually do her business. Our first selectman, Joe Mazza, will be our Cow Chip judge and will determine the winning parcel. The person who has bought the rights to the lucky parcel will win the grand prize of $1,000!”

Rights to each parcel for the raffle will be sold before the event for $10. Waggoner said they don’t have a fundraising goal for the event, they just hope people come to have fun.

“We hope to raise as much as we can through the raffle, but we really just want the families to have a great time and learn some things, too,” she said.

All proceeds from the event will go toward the NGNS Farm to Preschool (F2PS) curriculum. The program was conceptualized and brought to the school by Executive Director Nadine Jerbi and Donna King of Balsam+Berry.

Jerbi said two primary goals of the program are for students to be able to say, “I know where that comes from and why it’s a healthy choice for me,” and “I’ve done that before, I can do that now.”

Earthfest will be held Saturday, April 23 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Dudley Farm Museum, 2351 Durham Road, Guilford. For raffle ticket sales and Bingo info, contact Amy Healy at 203-457-0808. For more information about the NGNS Farm to Preschool Program or to become a partner, contact Nadine Jerbi at 203-457-0808.