THE WINNER
American Dairy Association North East is committed to developing and implementing promotion programs to grow dairy sales and engage consumers and other key audiences with positive stories of dairy foods, farms and farmers. ADANE recognizes that most school-aged kids have never stepped foot on a farm, let alone a dairy, and that traditional in-person field trips have become greatly restricted due to health, safety, liability, budgeting and transportation limitations both at schools and at farms.

THE WORK
American Dairy Association North East partnered with Shift•ology Communication’s Virtual Farm Trips team in 2018 to develop an ongoing series of LIVE Virtual Farm Trips targeting K-12 students within the association’s region, including the states of New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware and parts of northern Virginia. Shift•ology provides the technical and logistical support to produce the trips, allowing ADANE and its farmers to do what they do best -- share and show the story of dairy farming. These trips connect students directly with real farmers for a live dairy tour and conversation to learn firsthand about dairy farming, all from the comfort of their classroom. Students see behind the scenes; including where cows are milked, inside barns, and tractors at work, as they experience all aspects of a farm.

THE WINS
Through the end of 2022, the partnership between ADANE and Shift•ology has resulted in more than 11,000 teachers registering over 250,000 students for a LIVE Virtual Farm Trip. Single trips often reach a live audience of tens of thousands of students with the largest registration for a single trip being over 66,000 students. Recordings of the trips on Facebook and YouTube also gained massive amounts of views as they were promoted and shared as a resource for classrooms during the COVID-19 pandemic. Not only do students get as close to a farm as they can without being there in person, but the program also saves schools, farms and the association a lot of time and money!