Farmington CC Promotes Environmental Unity Between Young Members, Wildlife

The Charlottesville, Va. club partners with the local 4H Club for a Wildlife Discovery Day—giving kids an up-close and hands-on introduction to a variety of reptiles and other creatures—and also sponsors a Family Birdhouse Building event. Also, Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Md. provides a Father-Son Football Frenzy event that includes live-streamed National Football League games and a variety of activities.

(As featured in C+RB’s 14th Annual Ideas Issue, June 2020.)

With a sprawling, 280-acre property nestled near the picturesque Blue Ridge Mountains, Farmington Country Club in Charlottesville, Va. is well-positioned to provide its members with special environmental experiences—and the club staff takes full advantage of that opportunity through family-oriented events such as Wildlife Discovery Day and Family Birdhouse Building.

For the wildlife discovery event, the club enlists the help of the local Holiday Lake 4-H Club to provide children and their parents with a safe, hands-on, up close-and-personal introduction to a variety of reptiles and some of nature’s other “coolest creatures.” The children are given a craft to do while waiting for the event to start, and are then able to touch and hold the animals during and after the educational session.

Farmington’s Youth Activities Department developed the birdhouse building event to encourage families to construct and decorate shelters they could put in their own homes’ yards, to provide a safe space for building nests and staying protected from predators and harsh weather. Farmington’s Maintenance Department cut all of the lumber for the birdhouses in advance and pre-drilled holes to make it easier for younger members to construct the houses. The club’s Youth Program Managers then helped the families put the houses together, and children finished painting and decorating them before taking them home. 

Want a great idea for making a lot of the Moms among your membership be forever indebted to your club? Follow the lead of Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Md., and provide a Father-Son Football Frenzy event that can help to clear the house of testosterone on Sundays.

Congressional’s event lets 25 father-son duos come to the club to watch live-streamed National Football League games while also burning up their own energy through activities that include ping pong, pop-a-shot basketball, darts, inflatable football toss, a team cheer competition and an individual “touchdown dance” competition. And they won’t come home demanding dinner, either, after partaking of a spread that includes three types of wings, slider and nacho bars, a chili station, curly fries, hot dogs, four options for chips and dip, and a trail-mix bar, all topped off by s’mores around the fire pit.