For almost 50 years, individuals and groups from rural and urban environments have been drawn together in events to celebrate their interdependence during the seven days that end on Thanksgiving Day.

Called Farm-City Week, the celebration was initiated by Kiwanis International in 1955 as a way of promoting understanding between rural and urban residents.

A variety of activities are planned in communities around the nation to celebrate the occasion, including classroom activities, rural-urban job exchanges, festivals, banquets, and farm-city tours. Presently about 18,000 communities across the nation participate in some manner in Farm-City Week activities.

Here in Bladen County, the highlight of Farm-City Week is the Farm-City Week Banquet, which is held on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving at the Powell-Melvin Agriculture Service Center. This year's event will feature Congressman Mike McIntyre as keynote speaker.

Also on the program are four local students.

Heather Shaw, the reigning Miss National Teenager, will perform at the banquet. Two East Bladen High School students, Stephanie Brock and Grace Horrell, will also perform a flute duet providing dinner music during the program. James Green, first chair trumpet player in the East Bladen Band, will perform the National Anthem.

The local event is jointly sponsored by the Elizabethtown Kiwanis Club, the Bladen County Office of the North Carolina Cooperative Extension and others.

Dr. Martha Warner, director of the Bladen County office of the North Carolina Cooperative Extension, said the week should have special significance to Americans.

"Most of us are blessed with an abundance of wholesome food, thanks to the bountiful production of our agricultural sector," said Warner. "On a whole, our farmers are the most productive in the world. Yet, many in our nation have little knowledge of their role in our lives.

"Not only do they feed this nation, their efforts provide food for people throughout the world," she added.

"That is one way the activities of Farm-City Week can be beneficial-to promote the extraordinary efficiency of our farmers in providing us a wholesome and plentiful food supply.

"But the agricultural segment of the fabric of our economy cannot exist alone. It depends on a market for its products in order to remain viable. Therefore, our rural and urban environments are inextricably dependent on each other."

Warner said Farm-City Week encourages the interchange of ideas and information between farm and non-farm, rural and urban people, with the goal of promoting cooperation and understanding between the two groups.

"If we are to continue to be successful as a nation, it is essential that we not forget the importance of the relationship that binds us together as urban and rural people," Warner said.

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