Youth, organizations, and the future

Matt Ault­man
darkecountyfarmer@gmail.com

As the sum­mer ends, so do the county fairs. Our fam­ily enjoys attend­ing the fairs exten­sively, so we can meet up with friends, fam­ily and neigh­bors. We look for­ward to the few days we get to spend together talk­ing about old times, about our chil­dren grow­ing up and what has hap­pened to us over the past year.
Time spent at the fair is usu­ally watch­ing live­stock shows or revues in the Youth Build­ing and it reminds us of the skills learned through youth orga­ni­za­tions like 4-H and FFA. The pass­ing of knowl­edge is some­thing that we take for granted in our county since we have such a strong agri­cul­ture com­mu­nity. We grow up pass­ing knowl­edge from one another through the 4-H and FFA pro­grams. It is instilled in us to take pride in our com­mu­nity and be good stew­ards of the land.
We need to value the edu­ca­tion of our youth and pass along to them the val­ues we’ve been taught from our past gen­er­a­tions. Groups like the 4-H and FFA pro­vide the basics, but we are lucky enough to have orga­ni­za­tions in our com­mu­nity that helps develop the youth and inform the pub­lic about agri­cul­ture.
Groups like Farm Safety Just 4 Kids, they are a great group that has a safety day each year to inform the youth of our county and they also attend the county fair and pass out lit­er­a­ture and get youth involved with the value of safety on the farm.
The Farm Bureau is another group that helps develop the youth of our county by being involved with local events and sup­port­ing the FFA among other groups with pro­grams edu­cat­ing the com­mu­nity about agri­cul­ture. The county’s Pork Pro­duc­ers and Cattleman’s Asso­ci­a­tion helps the youth develop by pro­vid­ing funds for schol­ar­ships, upgrad­ing facil­i­ties at the fair and pro­vid­ing infor­ma­tion to the pub­lic on the val­ues of their prod­ucts.
As we move for­ward in life we should take time to develop the youth, because one day they will be the ones car­ing for our com­mu­nity and the land that we live on. A man once told me that,”we only have some much ground, they aren’t mak­ing it any­more and we need to take care of it because once it’s gone, it gone.” He also told me and it has always hung with me to, “make the most of each day, because once its gone its gone for­ever, and to make each day impor­tant because I was exchang­ing a day of my life for it and I pledge to Gain, not lose; Be Good, not evil; Suc­ceed, not fail” Please con­sider this in you daily lives and con­sider the youth when your planning

Posted by Ashley Fritz on Sep 13 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.