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"Provider Pals" Needs Fur Farmers
Provider Pals, a national youth cultural exchange program, is expanding its five-year-old program to provide an educational opportunity to youth living in contrasting environments: the urban inner city and small rural communities. For the current school year, the urban/rural exchange will take place in 125 inner-city junior high classrooms.
"As the vast majority of Americans have moved farther and farther away from the land, many have forgotten or maybe have never known where their 'things' come from," says Provider Pals president Bruce Vincent. "Milk and bread simply show up on the grocery store shelves and lots of boards show up at the lumber store on sale day. And most of our urban youth have never known a farmer, rancher, logger, miner or fisherman who provide the necessities of their everyday life."
Provider Pals is made possible by a $1.5 million donation by Ford Motor Co., the principal sponsor. The Program's goal is to build a bridge of understanding between the cultures of inner-city and rural resource providing communities.
Rural resource providers are assigned to each of the selected urban classrooms, in areas such as Washington, D.C., New York, Detroit and Atlanta. The Providers communicate with the students on a regular basis via videotape and the Internet, culminating with the Provider making a personal visit to the classroom in April to meet the students he or she has gotten to know.
During the summer months, selected students will have an opportunity to travel to the rural west, where they will spend a week touching, feeling and learning about the people, the land and the environment that provides for them. Further exchange and learning occurs when students from rural America travel to urban areas and experience the cultural differences they may have only heard about.
The Provider Pals cultural exchange program will also feature accredited teacher training, curriculum materials and the use of technology. An advanced web site is in the works that will provide both urban and rural students with learning opportunities, moderated chat rooms, contest and regular communications.
"Ford has deep roots in both urban and rural communities," said Jack Palazzolo, Ford Division brand communications manager. "Programs like Provider Pals that support education, understanding and opportunity for our young people are important to our nation's future."
For further information contact: Teresa Platt, Executive Director, Fur Commission USA, PMB 506, 826 Orange Avenue, Coronado, CA 92118-2698 USA, (619) 575-0139, (619) 575-5578/fax, furfarmers@aol.com, www.furcommission.com.
To take a cyber-tour of a fur farm, visit Fur Commission USA's Fur on Film at http://www.furcommission.com/video/index.htm