A new festival is making its way to Bowling Green for those interested in the concept of homesteading.
Kentucky Sustainable Living launched in 2019 to build a community focused on making homesteading and emergency preparedness information accessible to everyone. The organization now plans to host the “Kentucky Sustainable Living Homesteading & Preparedness Festival” to showcase some of those skills.
All about homesteading
Founding member of Kentucky Sustainable Living, Jason Sparks, told WKU Public Radio that the event will teach several elements of homesteading, which he described as a lifestyle built around self-sufficiency.
“Homesteading is essentially growing your own food on your property, raising your own animals, and going back to the way our grandparents used to do it. Our grandparents used to raise their own meat and grow their own vegetables as opposed to buying everything at the grocery store, and there has been a resurgence of that.”
Sparks attributed the resurgence to the COVID-19 pandemic and the effects it had on store shelves. He added that the group was launched initially on Facebook to teach people how to deal with such issues.
“We saw the need to educate some of these people who have never been in it (homesteading) before and also learn from people who had been doing it a lot longer than I have.”
According to the 2022 State Agriculture Overview, Kentucky has 12.9 million acres of farmland, featuring over 73,000 farms. The state also has a lower cost of living than the national average, which makes it appealing to those looking for a rural lifestyle.
Open to all
The event is free and will feature numerous speakers ready to chat about topics like pastureland management, gardening, first aid, and emergency preparedness. There will also be several demonstrations ranging from butchery and dairy cow milking to metal forging.
“This is our very first event,” Sparks said. “We’re going to do one every spring and every fall, is the plan. We’ve already got a date for the spring, and as soon as we get done with this one, we’re going to start planning the spring event.”
Several vendors will be on hand for the first event with items like homemade soaps, construction equipment, medical supplies, and sheds that can be converted into “tiny homes.”
Additionally, the event will feature a charity dinner Saturday night for the nonprofit Veterans for Child Rescue, which is an organization comprised of military and law enforcement members dedicated to exposing child trafficking and rescuing victims.
“We’re hoping to raise $10,000, and if we raise $10,000, they’re going to come to Warren County and run operations,” Sparks said.
The two-day event runs from Saturday, Oct. 28 through Sunday, Oct. 29 at the L.D. Brown Ag Expo Center on the campus of Western Kentucky University.
