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Contributed by Stacie Kinlaw, Bladen County Extension Agent, 4-H Youth Development
Elizabethtown, NC — For the 76th consecutive year, millions of youth, parents, volunteers and alumni across the country will be celebrating National 4-H Week during the first full week of October. Bladen County 4-H will leverage National 4-H Week this year by showcasing the incredible experiences that 4-H offers young people, and will highlight the remarkable 4-H youth in our community who work each day to make a positive impact on those around them.
Bladen County 4-Hers kicked off this week-long celebration with our Bladen County Commissioners as they presented the official proclamation to our youth members and officers at their October 1st meeting. You will also see our 4-H members helping to sell 4-H clovers at the local Tractor Supply store on October 3-14, 2018 to raise money for local scholarships and programs. In addition, 4-H members, volunteers, and friends will be spreading awareness about 4-H via social media this week using highlighting these messages #TrueLeaders and #4HGrowsHere.
“As I begin my seventh year as our local 4-H Agent in Bladen County, I am excited about the continued growth in programs, partnerships, and activities for Bladen County 4-H,” said Stacie Kinlaw, 4-H agent. “We continue to focus our programming efforts toward improving health and nutrition through education and opportunity and increasing Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics for Bladen County’s youth as a strategy to prepare them for careers beyond high school. This year we increased the offerings of FREE Science, Technology, Engineering and Math activities to many communities in our county serving more than fifty NEW 4-H participants using Innovative Community funds from NC A&T State University. We have established a new partnership with Kuraray America, Inc. to help fund and expand our 4-H robotics programs in Bladen County. We even sent three of our youth and one adult volunteer to space – space camp that is!!! NC A&T State University funded a pilot STEM leadership program and our county was selected to send a delegation to space camp in Huntsville, Alabama in August of 2018. Our program is filled with great opportunities for youth and I have great expectations for our success.”
Bladen County 4-H programming continues to grow and expand programs and partnerships in our community. Last year, our program reached more than 1600 of the youth ages 5 to 18 in our county. We have maintained our existing clubs; while initiating new programs and projects that involve the non-traditional 4-H member.
4-H alumni around the country are always the first to acknowledge the significant positive impact 4-H had on them as young people; the opportunities and experiences that 4-H provides youth empowers them to become true leaders. In fact, research has shown that young people in 4-H are almost four times as likely to contribute to their communities, and are twice as likely to engage in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) programs in their free time.
In Bladen County more than 170 4-H youth, around 1400 other youth, and at least 100 volunteers from the community are involved in 4H. To find out what is going on in our local 4-H programs, please check us out on facebook at https://www.facebook.com/BladenCounty4H or call or email our local 4-H agent at Stacie_kinlaw@ncsu.edu or (910) 862-4591.
One of the most anticipated events of National 4-H Week every year is 4-H National Youth Science Day, which sees hundreds of thousands of youth across the nation taking part in the world’s largest youth-led science challenge. The exciting theme for this year’s challenge is Incredible Wearables. On Wednesday, Oct. 4, youth will use the engineering design process to build a prototype wearable technology that will gather data to help solve a real-world problem. Wearable technologies are now used in industries around the globe, from education and sport, to health, fashion, entertainment, transportation and communication. To learn more about National Youth Science Day, please visit http://www.4-h.org/nysd/. We will be offering this program to our 4-H clubs and other community organizations throughout the month of October and into the remainder of the program year.
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