4H Gives Back to Community

Kelli McRobert | May 25, 2022

In Frontenac County, Kingston, and the surrounding areas, kids have a chance to participate in peer-to-peer collaboration through the, not-for-profit, 4H Association. Adult volunteers work with youth groups to develop leadership skills that contribute positively to their communities and instill confidence and knowledge with Clubs, Bursaries, and Scholarships. Established over 100 years ago, the 4-H in Canada now boasts that there are 23,000 youth members aged 6-25 and 8,700 volunteers in 1800 clubs across the country.

Jennifer Clement is currently the President of the Frontenac 4H Executive and was also a participant during her younger days. Now that she has children of her own, although they are too young to participate at the time (Cloverbuds begin at ages 6-8 yrs old), she wants to continue to support the organization by offering her time, skill, and experiences. She noted that is it not just ‘agriculture’ and that there are lots of other opportunities in the field of photography, science, computers, and nature. The 4-H stands for Head, Heart, Hands, and Health.

There are numerous scholarships available to 4-H members along with those that are for “Anyone”, and each one can be found on their website with opportunities for support for students enrolled in various agricultural programs. New in 2022 are the David Perrin Memorial Award offering two $1500.00 awards and the Central Canada Exhibition Legacy Scholarship which offers bursaries/grants to further careers to active 4-H members at a post secondary institution or apprenticeship program. 4-H Ambassadors are available to come out to your event to support youth participation and encourage others to take leadership roles within their communities.

Other youth (ages 9-21) events are 4-H camps, clubs, conferences, competitions, podcasts, and contests. The opportunities are endless as you scroll through pages of Club Projects that have been initiated and are categorized based on Personal Development, Outdoors and Environment, Animals, Foods, Plants, to name but a few, with the underlying theme being ‘master old hobbies or discover new ones through firsthand experience’. With a passion for all things agriculture, the 4-H Livestock program fine tunes the skills of our youth during real-life responsibilities and demonstrates the level of care needed to maintain livestock, animal health and record keeping. With a blend of traditional and nontraditional projects the members can experience a variety of opportunities for hands-on learning, skill development, and networking both locally and nationally, and during non-covid times, internationally.

Recently the Frontenac Community 4H Club held a food drive at the Sydenham Foodland, and it was met with great success. 9 eager members spent the day meeting residents and sharing their passion for giving back to the community. They raised $1158.40 that will be donated to the South Frontenac Community Center Food Bank and 643lbs of food was received. A special thanks goes out to Bernie Robinson who donated 200lbs of potatoes and to the Milk Committee (Frontenac Dairy Farmers) who donated 26 blocks of cheese. This is the season ‘finale’ for this club and each club has an achievement day where they plan an event to celebrate, fund raise, or to ‘show’ their animals for awards and prizes, like a graduation.

Over the years, this group has been very generous with their time, and efforts, and have managed to donate 1000 items to Interval House, $2500.00 to the Easter Seals Society, and they continue to participate actively in the cleanup of roadside garbage, donate to Sandy Pines Wildlife in Napanee and research, plan, and organize activities throughout the year. During COVID, meetings were held virtually (Virtual Clubs) to maintain social connections and this food drive was one of the first, in-person, to happen since lockdown began.

Congratulations to the group on a successful event, and we look forward to hearing about your future community projects.

For more information on how to volunteer or to become a member and join a club please see their website at: https://4hontario.ca