Robeson County 4-H

As I write this I am thinking of the fun we have had this week and all the work ahead of us in the next few hours. But I digress. Let us share what happened toda y before we talk about tomorrow. We started this fantastic day with our traditional breakfast and flag raising before heading off to the days activities. With the trekkers making their way back to camp and the adventurers waking up at their camp site the rest of the campers had a special treat. A hay ride to the home of Betsy and Jeff Penn, our 4-H camp's namesake. Their historic home which is right around the corner from the camp is called Chinqua Penn Plantation . It was built by Betsy and Jeff Penn in the 1920's and is filled with artifacts from all their travels around the world. Photos can not be taken in the house but outside, around the grounds is another story. This is considered one of the top ten best preserved historical homes in the state. Both Jeff and Betsy are buried on the grounds of the home they loved...

We might have hit the middle of the week but our activities are anything but ordinary today. We started early this morning with a hot breakfast of french toast, sausage, and fresh fruit. As our volunteer Missy said, "it was pretty darn good." Then after our flag raising and cabin cleanup (by the way cabin 7 won the golden faucet for the cleanest cabin, and cabin 3 won the silver toilet seat for the second cleanest cabin) it was off to a day of activities. The Trekkers, our oldest campers, headed to Pilot Mountain for their overnight adventure. They will have the opportunity to hike, river canoe, repel, and sleep under the stars. Not to mention cook a real campfire dinner over a real wood fire. The adventurer group, the next oldest group of campers, is camping out here at camp. They also had the added opportunity to work on GPS tracking today and Geo caching. Camp has gotten so high-tech. Tonight our regular campers had the opportunity to take part in our annual camp talent sh...

As if yesterday was not enough fun for our campers we had to change things up today. Up being the operative word, as you will see in a moment. Our campers had a traditional breakfast with eggs, bagels and bacon before hitting the road for a whole new set of activites. Of course we had our traditional horses, canoeing and archery activites. Some campers had the chance to hit the arts and crafts shelter for some creative and bizarre tye dyeing fun. Then there were trips to the rock wall, Beaver Pond, and of course the Ropes Courses . The agents and volunteers took a few moments out of their busy schedules to help shuck fresh corn for Thursday night's dinner and we even got a chance to make our own tye dyed t-shirts. I think they will look awesome. There are two sets of ropes courses at Betsy-Jeff Penn a low ropes and a high ropes courses. the low ropes course allows youth to work together and develop team working skills to complete tasks. The high ropes courses allows youth to face t...

It was a busy day as our campers hit the ground not necessarily running but sliding by . The morning started with a hot breakfast and flag raising. After it was off to activities. Some campers climbed to new heights on the rock wall while others climed onto horses and galloped off (to the other side of the ring). Our older youth took to the woods for orientiering, canoes for canoeing of course and then there were those who felt swimming in the lake was the way to go. We had swimming tests in the pool, archery and hopefully some rest time. After a delicious make your own taco dinner it was time for water sports. There were relay races where the youth had to spin around five times, grab a water filled sponge and race down the hill to squeeze the water into a bucket. First team to fill their bucket wins. There were relay races in the swimming pool and a wet parachute game or two. The real event of the night was the slip and slide. As youth hit the plastic sheet they sailed down toward the...

Robeson County descended on Betsy Jeff Penn Camp Sunday afternoon and we made our presence known . When the buses rolled up, we rolled out and grabbed our stuff and checked in. We had already made new best friends within our group and among the Richmond County 4-H group which picked up along the way. After moving into the cabins we made our way to the ball field and played all sorts of games to get to know each other. While one group played duck duck goose, another played an updated version of red rover and another played a murder mystery game. We played, ran and laughed until it was time to eat. The counselors cooked hot dogs with baked beans, chips, watermelon and chocolate chunk cookies. It was YUMMMMMMMMY! After dinner it was time for intros of all the staff and volunteers. We learned some very interesting things about the counselors and had a lot of fun cheering on our county volunteers and agents. The Heritage Dance took the next portion of the night as everypne learned a new ver...

Thursday is bittersweet when it comes to 4-H Congress. It is the last day that we are together and we know things are winding down. However it is also the day the allows the youth to demonstrate and celebrate their leadership skills , which is why we come to Congress in the first place. Our morning started with inspiration as our keynote speaker inspired our youth to think of others. After that there were workshops which included topics like ethics and working with youth of different ages and stages. After a brief lunch break the youth reconvened their meeting for the purpose of state officer elections while the adults met to tied up loose ends and talk about our third year of celebrating our centennial. With 11 running for various offices it was not surprising that two races, President and Reporter, went to a run off election. In the end the youth elected; La as President, as Michael Drake as Vice President, as John Norwood as Secretary and Ann Margaret as Reporter. As soon as the e...

Wednesday is traditionally the hands to service day for 4-H members attending State 4-H Congress. This year was no different as hundreds of 4-Her's from around the state descended on a variety of nonprofit organizations and did anything and everything they could to leave a positive impression on each organization, their clients, and all the citizens of North Carolina. Robeson County had the opportunity to join forces with Rowan, Polk, Rutherford, and Harnett Counties to make a major difference for UNC-TV . UNC-TV is a public television station located in Research Triangle Park. Like other public television stations UNC-TV is funded through contributions from viewers, corporate sponsors, and volunteers who give their time for various opportunities. Our rather large group took over several areas of the station to lend a whole bunch of hands. In the conference room we took over stuffing envelopes, and getting ready for a mass mailing. In the library we helped arrange books. In the off...

This is the event of the 4-H year. State 4-H Congress is going on this week and already in day two we have had some major accomplishments, incredible opportunities, and an insight into the next 100 years of 4-H. Congress is an annual event for teens. The first day and night are also open to youth who are participating in presentations on the state level. It is an incredible experience for our youth to mingle with youth from across the state and sharpen their life skills during the week. Our delegation this year is made up of Aljaquan Nixon, Camry Ocean, Cierra Buckman, Yazmin Washington, LaQuanwanda Banks, and Jessica McLean. Marilyn Merritt of the Young Leaders 4-H club volunteered to go with the delegation this year. Monday started with the preliminary items. We drove to Raleigh to the N. C. State Campus, where we stay for the week. After taking care of the paperwork and other registration items we moved into our dorm rooms in the high rise towers. After meetings for youth and adult...

We did it and so did they. About 100 youth worked with 4-H at the Maxton, Red Springs, and St. Paul's libraries and had a ball (and used a ball of yarn) learning about old fashioned story telling. The youth, and parents as well, got a chance to take a spin on some old fashioned yarn games like handcuffs, witch's broom, cup and saucer, as well as Jacob's ladder. The youth had great big smiles on their faces as they learned the different activities and even adults had a good time reliving their childhood. This is the last of the library programs for us this year. We had a great time telling everyone about 4-H and inviting them to our centennial programs. We are looking forward to next years programs and hope everyone will join us this year for lots of 4-H fun.

It is the last of the animals that we give out each year in 4-H animal science, our broilers. Broilers are meat chickens that our youth will raise for the fair. Five youth will have the opportunity to bring the best two broilers that they raise, to the Robeson Regional Agricultural fair in October. They are about a week old when we give them out and they will grow incredible fast. In the meantime we will check in and make sure they are growing strong and getting ready for their day in the ring at the fair. Stay tuned as we update you on the growth of the birds and our youth!

This past week 4-H horse enthusiasts from around the state came together for the annual State 4-H Horse Show. Although Robeson County did not have anyone riding in the show we still made people stand up and take notice in the Horse Creative Expression Contest. Three members of the Horsin' Around 4-H Horse Club entered 6 different pieces of work to take home three awards. Dakota Strickland entered an original photo and took first place in the cloverbud division, receiving a medal for his efforts. Rebekka Girouard and Megan Hurst both juniors entered pieces into the photo and drawing divisions and Megan also completed a painting for the painting division. All of these divisions are very competitive. When the judges had their final say and the points were tallied Rebekka earned a fifth place ribbon for her photograph and Megan earned a fourth place ribbon for her painting. These 4-H members worked hard on their artistic pieces and deserve a pat on the back for their effort...

Thursday was the day to visit the Rowland library and get creatively stringy with them. Today we had a new addition to help us, China Troy who is a summer intern with the Robeson County Center of the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service, travelled with our 4-H department to help out with this creative endeavor. A few youth joined us for the weekly story time but something magical also happened. Shortly after story time started a group of developmentally disadvantage adults walked to the library to join us. A few of the adults who came remembered doing this as children and it just took a few pulls of the string in different directions to remind them of all the fun they used to have. Before you knew it everyone had mastered the techniques we were teaching and the adults showed us some new stuff. However after years of making the designs they found it difficult to break it down into steps to teach so we all worked together to make it happen and the next thing you know the...

One of the great things about 4-H is that you learn by doing. You can gain public speaking skills by taking part in a public speaking contest or demonstration speech contest. You learn about animals by taking care of an animal. You learn about the environment by getting in there and getting dirty. That's right getting dirty and that is exactly what we did with about a dozen Scotland County youth on Wednesday . Kerri Roach, the Horticulture Extension Agent in Robeson County was brave enough to travel over to Scotland and help in the get dirty process (which did not seem like a problem at all for her). The youth were part of the Scotland County 4-H Summer program and seemed eager to see what we had planned. We started the day with some buggy activities. We learned about the different senses the bugs use by playing the smell game and making bug eyes. Then it was time to address the big black canister in the room. We learned about vermicomposting (composti...

Tuesday was filled with even more 4-H and library fun as we visited Fairmont and Proctorville libraries . The gathered around as we shared this old fashioned story time illustration technique with them. Some of the parents and grandparents even got into the act and dusted off their skills to show us things like cat's whiskers and Jacob's ladder. The event promoted a whole new level of communication between the adults and youth as we had a great time at both libraries. Stay tuned as we visited every library in Robeson County to "Be Creative" with our youth.

Summer is one of the best times of year for 4-H. We are busy trying to meet as many youth as we can and tell them about 4-H and some of the things we offer. One way we do that is by partnering with the library and helping out with their weekly story time at all eight public library branches in Robeson County. Our first stop this year, the Pembroke and Lumberton libraries . We worked with more than 100 youth who ranged in age from 3 to 15 on all sorts of neat things. Everyone had the opportunity to learn about 4-H and what the 4-H's stand for. They can also tell you what our logo is, what our official colors are and the secret about our logo so you know it is our official logo. They also got a really cool, official, 4-H sticker for their hard work learning about the 4-H's. After that they worked on practicing a type of story telling. They learned that back before television and other modern conveniences people told stories to entertain each other. Often they would illustrate the...

It was a program specifically made for a 4-H mini-day camp, Mini-Society. The program allows youth to create their own government, financial system and business, while they accidentally learn about money management, citizenship, and marketing. Each day is filled with fun and exciting adventures that they create and allow to run the course. On Monday they voted on their town flag, money design and conducted interviews for important jobs like banker, money cutters, county council President and more. It was a day of deciding what their society would be like, who could come and go, and how decisions would be made. The youth also worked on their posters for their businesses which would open on Tuesday. After job assignments on Tuesday and having a brief county council meetings to discuss issues the group got ready and opened their businesses. They even voted to allow some outsiders to come in and spend money (mainly office staff). They had some creative businesses, from a beauty s...