Celebrating National 4-H Week

National 4-H week will take place the sec­ond week of Octo­ber (Octo­ber 7–13).
National 4-H week is a time to honor and thank every­thing the pro­gram has to offer to the thou­sands who go through the pro­gram every year.
Dur­ing 2010, accord­ing to Sta­tis­ti­cal Report pro­duced by The Ohio State Uni­ver­sity Exten­sion, 317,286 youth par­tic­i­pated in the Ohio 4-H pro­gram, with the help of 20,949 adult vol­un­teers guid­ing youth along the way.
What exactly is 4-H?
4-H is a youth devel­op­ment and lead­er­ship pro­gram, in which The Ohio State Uni­ver­sity Exten­sion and their staff over­sea, pro­vid­ing mate­ri­als and guide­lines to the 88 dif­fer­ent coun­ties in Ohio. 4-H has been defined as a com­mu­nity of young peo­ple across Amer­i­can who are learn­ing lead­er­ship, cit­i­zen­ship, and life skills.
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Hav­ing been through the 4-H pro­gram and now an adult vol­un­teer, I have been able to expe­ri­ence first-hand how ben­e­fi­cial 4-H can be to a per­son.
I often get asked two ques­tions: why did you join 4-H in the first place?…Why do you con­tinue to with it?
Why did I join 4-H?
Good ques­tion. I do not really know why. I remem­ber when I was in third grade I attended an assem­bly at school and lis­tened to the speaker talk about what 4-H was, and all the things you could do. As most who know me are aware, I have had rab­bits for a very long time. I remem­ber find­ing out you could show rab­bits and that is what I think drew me into it.
I of course, only being 8 at the time, had to ask my mom if I could join 4-H, which took a lot of con­vinc­ing. But she let me. Which to this day I like to remind her of, because she her­self became a part of the pro­gram a few years after I did, and just cel­e­brated her 15th year as a 4-H advi­sor. And to think — if she would have said no….she would not have been able to do so.
Why do I con­tinue
with 4-H?
Well I just com­pleted my 18th year with the Pre­ble County 4-H pro­gram, 11 years as a mem­ber and seven as an advi­sor. It is really hard to believe that I have been around the pro­gram that long, but this is one thing I would not change for the world.
I keep doing 4-H because, if it was not for 4-H, there is no way I would have been able to expe­ri­ence what I have. The impact it has made on myself and oth­ers around me is why I have stayed with it.
Being a 4-H advi­sor, I have been able to make a dif­fer­ence in some­one. One of my 4-H’ers and I spent basi­cally all sum­mer together work­ing on her projects. I got to see first-hand how much impact one can have on someone’s life.
While I was in 4-H, I was most known for my sewing projects, more so than rab­bits. Through­out the 6 years I did sewing, I did eight dif­fer­ent projects. I walked away with four State Fair Rep­re­sen­ta­tive awards, a Kroger Out­stand­ing of the Day tro­phy, and a few other hon­ors.
This year was the first year I was able to put my sewing skills back into 4-H. My 4-H’er and I tack­led a sun­dress for her first sewing project. It was so great to watch her learn exactly how cloth­ing is put together. I’ll never for­get her ask­ing me, “We need this many pieces for a dress?”
Dur­ing the fair this year, I was able to meet the rest of another 4-H’er’s’ fam­ily. This one in par­tic­u­lar was a rab­bit girl, and it was her first year show­ing them. She had won her show­man­ship age group and her dad come up to me and thanked me for all the hard work I have done, and how much he appre­ci­ated what I and the other advi­sors in the club, have done for his daugh­ter.
…..Those two sto­ries are why I keep doing what I do.
What did 4-H do for me?
Those who know me know I am not exactly a social but­ter­fly.
Through 4-H, I was able to over­come my fear of speak­ing in front of peo­ple, although it took a while. It was not until I hit high school that I was able to do so. When I became a camp coun­selor and a mem­ber of the Junior Fair Board and Food and Fash­ion Board, I learned it. I am actu­ally one of two peo­ple in Pre­ble County to win at State Fair in the pub­lic speak­ing con­test last.
Being able to speak pub­licly is not some­thing you are born with, nor is it some­thing one would learn overnight. When I first had to learn, it freaked me out, but thank­fully, I took the oppor­tu­nity to learn. In the career that I chose, talk­ing to peo­ple is impor­tant.
A few weeks back, my youngest sis­ter Rachel and I were talk­ing about the dif­fer­ent things we have learned from 4-H that we have both been able to apply to our lives post-4-H. Many things came up, such as respon­si­bil­ity, lead­er­ship, time man­age­ment, and patience.
4-H does some­thing dif­fer­ent for every­one.
For me, I think the biggest thing I have been able to take away, besides pub­lic speak­ing, is more of a motto that one of my co-advisors, Amanda, and I have tried to instill in our kids’ minds: 4-H is one of those things where your suc­cess depends on my how much work you are will­ing to put into it. You do not do well by wing­ing it – you do well by putting in the time and energy to learn your ani­mals or your project. It is not an overnight thing, it takes years to get to where you want to be.
So in honor of National 4-H week – if you’re a cur­rent or past mem­ber of 4-H, sit down and think about what 4-H has done for you and/or what you want to get out of it.

Ash­ley Fritz is the lead desiger of ACRES of West­ern Ohio. She is also a for­mer 4-H mem­ber and cur­rent 4-H advi­sor in Pre­ble County.

Posted by Ashley Fritz on Oct 10 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.