A fee increase jeopardized the future of the World of Inquiry Chicken Club
By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com
A 91-year-old farmer from Livingston County, N.Y. helped preserve a local chicken club.
Ronald Lord donated $100 to keep the World of Inquiry Chicken Club in Rochester, N.Y. afloat. The club was at risk of shutting down after the City raised its annual fees for poultry and animal licenses from $37 to $75.
“I have been lucky in my life and I want to share it,” he told the Democrat and Chronicle yesterday. “I don’t know how else to word it.”
Lord donated the money after learning that members of the club had written to Mayor Lovely Warren about the impacts of the $38 increase.
“If the permit fee stays at $75, we will be forced to stop the program and give the chickens away,” Jules Wagner, student leader of the Chicken Club, wrote in the letter, the Democrat & Chronicle reports.
First-graders hatch the chickens, middle-school students care for the poultry and high-school students build the chicken coops.
The club had become a regular part of student life.
“During recess, some kids play on the swings, some play with the ball and some play with the chickens,” Laura Drake, a math teacher at World of Inquiry, told the newspaper yesterday.
“The chickens help me out with my emotions,” Kian Acevedo, a 15-year-old student, told the local paper. “When I’m not feeling great, I just come out here. They make me feel better.”
Lord wrote to the same newspaper and attached a $100 bill to the letter to ensure the school club received the funding it needed to keep operating.
“Here is some money for Jennifer Wagner’s daughter Jules,” Lord’s letter said. Jules “can pay for the permit to keep the chicken program going.”
Lord has since donated another $100 to the cause, which the club will use for coop improvements.
Ronald Lord
Olivia Lopez/Rochester Democrat & Chronicle photo