The following information was gathered from my 4-H Volunteer notebook
On January 15, 1902, A.B. Graham, superintendent of schools inClark County Ohio, established the Boys and Girls Agricultural Clubs(earlier name for 4-H) when he organized the Springfield TownshipAgricultural Experiment Club.
The purpose of 4-H is to provide learning experiences and opportunitiesfor youth which will help them grow and develop to their fullestpotential. The 4-H youth development program encourages individuals toreach their potential through:
Hands-on and experiential learning that encourages learning by doing.
Growth through successes and challenges.
Exploring a wide range of opportunities.
Providing supportive and nurturing environments, and relationships thatempower peopleto voluntarily help themselves and each other.
The 4-H program is for children from 8 years of age and in the 3rdgrade thru the age of 18. 4-H age is the child's age as of January 1 soif a child is 18 on Jan 1 they can go that whole year still in the 4-Hprogram. The children don't have to live in a rural area to be in 4-Heither.
Children can take projects in sewing, fishing, computers, photographyand livestock to name a few. The children attend 4-H meetings eitherthrough a club that's specially meant for their project or a general4-H club that accepts all projects. The 4-H program is ran onvolunteers that have knowledge in the project(s) their clubs allow. Forexample, the club I'm an adviser with the children have to take therabbit project because that's what our club is 'about' and the advisersmust have experience with rabbits.5 out of the6advisers have children inthe club or had children in theclub. I'm the onlyone that doesn'tfall in thatcategory as I left the 4-H program as a member and wentrightto being an adviser. One of our advisers is aspecialty breed judge (can only judge Netherland Dwarfs). However, thechildrencan take other projects if they choose. If they takeprojects that the advisers aren't familiar with then the children areon their own to complete their project as they have a book to guidethem. Some children in our club take photography because we have anadviser that's a professional photographer.
The children then go on to have their projects judged/shown at the clublevel, county level (fair) and an optional of state level(state fair).
Ingeneral the clubs teach the children about communityservice and leadership.Themeetings are ran by theclubs officers with the advisers there for supervision. Each year ourclubhas the children do a communityservice projectand many times we do more. Our club meetsat a local VFW(Veterans of Foreign Wars)with no charge and they only thingthey ask is that we helpwait the tables atthecounty speechbanquet.TheVFW paystheclub/organization that waits the tables so in reality theclub gets paid to hold their meetings at the VFW. Each year ourchildren adopt a family from the 'needy trees' located in Wal-Mart. Thekids then set a selected amount of money they will spend on each memberof the family based on the fund raisers they've done for the year. Oneyear our club donated new lights in our barn for the fair.
4-H really helped me as I used to be the child in the back that didn'tsay a darn thing! I then became an officer for the club and now thechildren can't get me to stay quiet!It's reallyafun program and I'm getting thechance to experience themember andadviser partbasically at the same time.All my 4-H kids used tobemy fellow clubmembersso my relationship with them is totally different thenthe other advisers. I'm more on a friend level and easier to approachthen the 'motherly and fatherly' figures in ourclub.
I'm sure that's more then you wanted to know about 4-H!
. I always think erb sounds weird! It's like aburping noise or something, hehe!
