Robeson County 4-H

4-H Volunteer training went high tech and just might reach millions of people. Almost a dozen volunteers came to the Robeson County 4-H office for quarterly training. The topic this quarter...marketing. We broke the ice with a fun listening exercise and then read the signs about marketing. We actually started with a mix of high tech and low tech to make club signs that could be hung up in front of meeting locations to let everyone know where and when our clubs meet in the community. The signs will cost less than ten dollars to make and can include the entire club in the process of making it. We also explored some more high tech ways to market such as blogs, Facebook, and You Tube. Volunteers were also exposed to other ways to communicate with members and volunteers including text messaging, phone trees and Twitter. All the way around we learned something new and came up with some new ways to include our members in marketing our club programs, giving them a little more responsibility an...

So getting up early to sell plants, and turning around to plant plants as a community service project was just the beginning. The next step was to travel to Floyd's Farm in Fairmont to enjoy a particular plant, strawberry plants. It was the annual kids day at Floyd's Strawberry Patch . Not only were there a bunch of 4-H members present enjoying the day, there were Extension staff members everywhere enjoying the ripe red berries that had pulled us all there. Another draw for the day, was that a percentage of the proceeds went to our local autism society. Kids and adults enjoyed homemade ice cream, got to pick fresh berries, and enjoy a day on the farm. The youth also had the opportunity to ride on a trackless train, bounce in bouncy houses, and check out a real fire truck and the Sheriff office's command center. What a way to end a day center on plants. It was really sweet!

The plant sale was hard work. The next step in the day was even harder work but more rewarding if you ask the "Dirty Rascals" Junior Master Gardener Club members and the families of Hospice House residents. Since Robeson County 4-H is a United Way of Robeson County Agency each year a group or groups of 4-H members complete a community service project for the United Way Day of Caring which will be held May 7th this year. The project this year was conducting a planting project in a picnic area at the Southeastern Hospice House . This is the second year the youth have completed this project. As Master Gardener Connie Locklear and Club Leader Missy McLean set out the marigolds, salvia, and other flowering annuals the youth got their trowels ready to dig in to turn a drab area into a place that looked like it was blooming into spring. As soon as everything was laid out Ms. Messy Missy gave everyone a quick planting lesson. Then it was time to dig in and beautify. The more experi...

It is one of the earliest days of the year and one of the most profitable at least for the Robeson County Master Gardener Association and the "Dirty Rascals" Junior Master Gardener 4-H Club. The two organizations come together annually on the last Saturday in April for a plant sale . All the plants are raised by Members of the Master Gardener Association and the herbs are raised by members of the Junior Master Gardeners 4-H Club. Each year the sale starts at 7 a.m. This year the sale took place in the parking lot of North State Optics. Every plant, no matter the size or type, costs two dollars. At 6:45 a.m. there was already a line waiting to get at the plants, and some anxious buyers offering to help unload cars as they viewed what there was to buy. When we looked up at 7:40 a.m. there were but a few plants left and a majority of the herbs had been sold . It is a great opportunity for our youth to show off what they know about plants and raise money for their club. The money...

Do you know how to make a horse first aid kit, or how to train a dinosaur, or who Rosa Parks is? If you had attended the annual Robeson County 4-H County Activity Day on Saturday you would have learned all about these topics and more. About twenty youth took part in this event which is the first step to District Activity Day and then 4-H State Congress. There are two separate competitions for County Activity Day, Public Speaking and Presentations. In the Public Speaking Competition youth research and write their own speech which is approximately five minutes in length. In Presentations the youth demonstrate how to do something such as cooking their favorite dish or how to raise a puppy. The youth use visual aids such as posters or PowerPoint presentations to help illustrate what they are doing. In Public Speaking the speeches ranged from funny to emotional. In the Junior 9-10 Age division Michicko Hill, of the Inspirational Youth Leaders was the winner with her speech on teen drug abu...

The "Dirty Rascals Junior" Master Gardener (JMG) 4-H Club met this week to plan for their upcoming fundraiser. They also took the opportunity to go high tech and plant the AeroGarden that they helped purchase, along with the Master Gardeners for the Robeson County Office. As part of the planting project they planted all three AeroGardens . The top one will grow cherry tomatoes, two red and one gold heirloom. The middle one will grow a variety of herbs including mint, basil, dill, oregano and thyme. The bottom AeroGarden is loaded with basil. All the herbs and tomatoes can be used as part of the the nutrition cooking programs that take place at the Extension office. The youth did a great job planting and covering the pods with their greenhouse caps. They also put nutrients in each planting system and made sure each was full of water. In just a few days we should be seeing sprouts and taking off the caps to let our herbs and tomatoes grow. The members are also getting ready ...

4-H has a long history in Robeson County. As part of that history we have had some incredible 4-H Agents who have gone on to shape Extension and 4-H on the state and national levels. One such agent is Dr. Eddie Locklear. In November we made a big announcement at our 4-H Volunteer Appreciation Night thanks to Dr. Eddie Locklear and his wife Brenda. The Locklears agreed to help establish an endowment that would fund a Robeson County 4-H Volunteer Hall of Fame and honor a special 4-H volunteer each year. This is a huge honor for our 4-H program and volunteers. It is something that will last for the lifetime of our program (which is currently 97 years old). In other words it is a gift that will truly keep on giving. Our County Extension Director, Everett Davis wrote an article that appeared in today’s Robesonian . Below is the article. “Eddie Locklear was my first mentor when I began working with Robeson County Cooperative Extension almost 30 years ago. I have to give him a lot of credit ...

In our case the egg always comes first when we start a round of 4-H embryology in the schools. Today we gave out more than 30 dozen eggs as part of round two of this incredible hands-on school enrichment curriculum. This time we have incubators at Deep Branch, East Robeson, Flora McDonald, Janie C. Hargrave, Long Branch, Magnolia, Parkton, Rowland Norment, and St. Paul’s Elementary Schools. We also have a special addition to this round of embryology. Thanks to one of our 4-H member’s parents, we were given pink and blue eggs (the chickens lay eggs this color-they were not left over from Easter). So in the incubator at our office, and at a couple of the schools we have some different chickens hatching. I am getting a lot of questions wondering if the chicks that come out of the eggs will be pink or blue. I guess we will just have to wait and see. Feel free to come by and check out our eggs. We are expecting the eggs to hatch the week of May 2. You can always get updates right here on ou...

Monday night at 6:30 p.m. can only mean one thing…time for our quarterly 4-H County Council and Volunteer Leaders’ Association meeting . This meeting was jam packed full of information. We had the announcement of two new clubs, the Orrum Church Rascals 4-H Club and the Dirty Dozen 4-H Shooting Sports Club. We also introduced members of the 4-H Specialized Advisory Committee, Dave Welch, Betty Maxwell, Jessica Drake and Jane Hurst who set their meeting prior to our meeting so they could attend and see our clubs, volunteers and officers in action. The clubs represented at the meeting included;Future Leaders, Horsin' Around, Voices in Praise, Dirty Dozen, Dirty Rascals, St. Paul's Pony Club, Young Leaders, and Inspirational Leaders. The St. Paul’s Pony club won the high attendance award. Miss. Shea Ann also let the club leaders in attendance know about the new deadline to file taxes (for those clubs with EIN numbers) by Friday April 16, with our office. This is a firm deadline a...

If you ask our teens what their favorite thing about 4-H is, 9 times out of 10 they will say the trips. As you get older in 4-H you have more opportunities to mix and mingle with other 4-H members in other counties and around the state. This weekend provided our youth with one of these opportunities. The 2010 South Central District teen retreat was held at the Days Inn in Moore County. Almost 60 youth from 15 counties turned out to take part in leadership workshops, elect district officers, compete for the spirit stick and just have a good time with their peers. Representing Robeson County at this year's retreat were Laquawanda Banks, Christian McRae, Keheria RichardsonAshley and Kristen Sealey, The event started with a district meeting conducted by our outgoing officers, President Dixie Acorn, Vice President Luke Hill and reporter Courtney Miller. The officers laid out the ground rules for the event, and gave everyone a heads up on what gets you spirit stick points. Spirit stick ...

The Orrum Church Rascals 4-H club members are hitting the ground running. In one of the first meetings the group decided that they wanted to create a community garden to help feed low income and senior members of the community. Thanks to a little help from a neighbor to the church the group is digging in to meet one of their goals. The club broke ground Thursday on a set of raised bed gardens that they plan to grow vegetable in. The youth and adults staked out the land and made their plan of what they will grow and where. The youth at the meeting included Kirby Calder, Robert Allen, Alex Calder, Garron Henderson, Hannah Henderson, Kaylee Bebe, Justin Allen, Melanie Allen, Denny Calder and their organizational leader Barbra Cain. There were also a whole host of parents on hand to support these youth in their efforts, and our own Aggie Rogers went out and supervised everyone having a really good time. As we get more reports from this club we will keep you informed of the progres...

It is one of our favorite things to do in 4-H and I love when I can yell it out to the world (or write it for all to read). Today we can officially announce a new club in our county. This is a speciality club (meaning it focuses on one area) that will be known as the Dirty Dozen 4-H Shooting Sports Club. What makes this speciality club unique from our others (besides the shooting discipline) is that it is a cross-county club meaning youth from both Robeson and Bladen counties are making up the membership. So far 12 youth have signed up to be a part of the club. Eight attended the first organizational meeting in March and four attended the last meeting. Not only did the youth get to pick a name this past meeting but they also went over the introduction to rifles, proper sight alignment , how to load the rifles , and practiced target shooting . At the end of the day, to reward them for their hard work, the club leader, Larry Russ even let the members play the .22 caliber version of tic...

When I left the story of the chicks on Friday we had one still trying to make its way out of the shell. On Saturday morning, when I went by the office for a club meeting guess what? That one had not only made it out but another one to keep it company. I quickly fixed up a new brooder box and put the two chicks in their new temporary home. When I looked in the incubator, you guessed it there was one more trying to peck its way out. So I left the office that morning to carry on about our business and when I made it back that afternoon, there was the precious little chick. So I quickly added it to the two in the brooder box. In case you are wondering that takes us up to 26 chicks. When I looked back in the incubator, there was one more, pecking away (it has never taken this long to hatch eggs...of course I staggered the entry into the incubator as part of an experiment as well). So I went home and waited a few hours and called the wonderful person who agreed to take our chicks. She met me...

I realize it is Easter and maybe that is why our chicks are hatching like Energizer Bunnies. Every time I look in the incubator or open an e-mail, they are hatching and hatching. Yesterday after we posted to the blog we had three more hatch in our office. This morning when I came in I looked in the incubator and two more were waiting for me. It looks like there is one more on the way. For those of you keep count we have hatched 23 so far. The sweetest thing was seeing them sleeping this morning. Most of them were curled up together but two were away from the group nuzzled up against each other while another seems to have fallen asleep whileeating. It is tiring work being so cute. When I checked my e-mail Mrs. Armstrong at Pembroke elementary e-mailed me. In the six classrooms they conducted this project in they have had a total of 55 chicks hatch. All I can say is WOW! Mrs. Davis from Rex-Rennert said they had about 9 hatch per incubator or a total of 36 in their classrooms. She sai...

I think I might cry. It was our last night of Strengthening Families and as our group came together for the last time to celebrate accomplishments and review what we had learned making it a bittersweet evening. As always we had a special dinner, fried chicken, Christy's very special mashed potatoes (as prepared by Penny with only one Emergency call to make sure they were right-and oh boy were they right!), green beans, biscuits and a very special dessert. After we ate we broke into our parent and youth groups. The youth worked with Aggie Rogers reviewing our commitments to walk away from peer pressure, walk away from bad influences, and try to communicate with our families. The parents discussed the tools that they have implemented and how well they work. The parents also discussed how asking for help during stressful times can make families stronger. They worked on exercises that included how different agencies to suggest in helping other families and how, as friends and neighbors...