On Saturday, students from an Ohio University communication and nonprofit organizing course invited local families for an end of the semester celebration at the Bailey’s Pump Track in Millfield.
Students in the course worked all semester with the Outdoor Recreation Council of Appalachia and Saturday’s event was called Baileys in Motion.
Brittany Peterson, a professor in the Scripps College of Communication and the director of E-learning, taught the course and said the event was organized by her students.
As part of their course work, Peterson said students went to the trail system to clean and fix parts of the trail for users. Saturday’s activities included bike races, face painting, trail mix making, hand-painting and a raffle and giveaway to support ORCA.
“People sometimes have negative stereotypes when they think about Appalachia,” Peterson said. “(This) just helps them (students) to have a great understanding of the kind of work and what it means to work in a non-profit.”
ORCA was created in 2019 with a mission to “deliver economic, health, social, environmental and quality of life benefits to Ohioans.” ORCA manages Baileys Trail System.
Lana Peters, a sophomore studying communication studies, said she was grateful to be involved in the course and always had a passion for service and volunteering. Peters said the class was divided into teams with different tasks to organize the event.
“We've been making promotional materials, like posters … and we even went to an Athens event called Kid Fest, where we promoted our event,” Peters said. “I was on the programming team … I planned the make your own trail mix station, the hand print tree and also the face painting station.”
Peterson said she enjoys being able to put her students in “real life situations” to prepare and challenge them. Peterson’s students worked the event despite rainy weather conditions, helping kids ride on the track and finger paint.
“I love seeing students have hard challenges and figure out how to push through,” Peterson said. “So right now, our weather is not perfect, but how do you kind of adapt to that and figure it out and figure out problems?”
Peterson said she wanted people to be aware of the “beauty” of Appalachia and highlighted the importance of the community’s participation in the “Baileys in Motion” event.
“For the students in particular, a lot of kids spend all four years within the seven mile radius of campus,” Peterson said. “So getting them out a little bit further, getting them (to) interact with community members, help out a community organization, do something that really tangibly matters.”
The Cheesy Weenie food truck was at the event. Dan Harlett, owner of the truck, started the business nearly about five years ago.
“Ideally, we try to stay here in the community as much as possible,” Harlett said.
Harlett said the truck offered a full menu Saturday, including hot dogs, barbecue pulled pork sandwiches and Philly cheesesteaks.
“I know they just finished, like all 80 miles of trails now too,” Harlett said. “So hopefully people come out, get a chance to experience all that, grab some food while they're here.”
