Brown County 4-H youth to celebrate National 4-H Week Oct. 5-11

Aberdeen — More than 6 million young people across the country today will celebrate National 4-H Week, an annual celebration of 4-H during the first full week of October. Brown County 4-H will leverage National 4-H Week this year to showcase the great things that 4-H offers young people and highlights the incredible 4-H youth in the community who work each day to make a positive impact on the community.

Brown County 4-H is as excited as ever to promote 4-H in the 2014-2015 4-H Year. Here are some of the different ways the Brown County 4-H Clubs are promoting 4-H:

• Lazy Farmers will take treats and a thank you to area businesses to thank you for their support or to ask them for support. They go to businesses that are in Groton and Aberdeen. The kids also wear their 4H t shirts during this week. We also put projects in a display case in school.

• The Three River Ranchers club members will be wearing their green 4-H t-shirts to Frederick School on Wednesday.

• Honey Bees are going to have their older 4-H members go into the classrooms (grades 2-6) at Warner School and hand out pencils and talk about 4-H.

• The Dakota Sharpshooters put up a display at the Airport Cafe promoting 4-H.

• The Stateline Feeders are making a display of all of the clubs work and accomplishments for the past year. The display will be set out at the local café this week inviting new members to join and announcing the new members we have signed up. The kids are also going to be wearing 4h t-shirts throughout the week.

“4-H is not about the recognition and what my kids won. 4-H is the lifelong lessons they learned deep in their hearts. And no one can comprehend all that they learned and what I learned”, said Sandy Osterman, Brown County Leaders Association President.

Research has proven that participation in 4-H has a significant positive impact on young people. Recent findings from the Tufts University 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development indicate that, when compared to their peers, young people in 4-H are:

• Nearly four times more likely to contribute to their communities,

• Two times more likely to pursue healthy behaviors like, and

• Two times more likely to engage in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) programs in the out-of-school time.

In Brown County more than 310 4-H youth and 75 volunteers from the community are involved in 4 H.

Also during National 4-H Week, hundreds of thousands of youth from all around the nation will complete a single, innovative experiment on 4-H National Youth Science Day, which will be held on Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2014. The 2014 National Science Experiment Rockets to the Rescue, will task youth to design and build an aerodynamic food transportation device that can deliver a payload of nutritious food to fictitious disaster victims. Youth will learn engineering concepts, develop math skills, learn about nutrition and help solve a relevant, global issue. To learn more about National Youth Science Day, please visit http://www.4-h.org/nysd/.