When our office fell without an FCS/4-H Youth Development Agent, I knew I would have to take responsibility for those programs that were offered by that position until someone was hired. One of those responsibilities was submitting a craft/skill for the annual homemaker skills day. Along with the help of my staff assistant, we thought it would be a great idea to do a wooden door hanger, since those seem to be very popular around our area. We worked together in finding a design, looking up supplies and the price of those, and getting a game plan together before submitting it to the area FCS agent in charge. 

In order to prepare for the skills day, I coordinated with our school's ag teacher. He assisted me in finding the right material to use for the hangers and even used his bandsaw to cut out the 18 inch rounds. In exchange for him cutting out the circles, I was to do a "trial run" with one of his smaller classes. There were 12 youth who participated in making the door hangers. I gave them artistic freedom as in what they wished to do, and we worked together to see what worked, what didn't, and what needed to be addressed before skills day rolled around. 

This trial run was crucial to the success of my program. I found out that the rounds needed to be stained a week in advance, if you were using stencil vinyl on top of paint, the paint needed to be painted at least 3 days in advance, and staples were the way to go when attaching the greenery and other decorations. 

It was decided that my class would charge $10 per participant and we would use program support funds for the remainder of the costs. The limit on the class was 15 participants, and it was one of the only classes that was completely full by the day of the event. We had a 2 hour time frame to complete the project. 

Participants were given the information on the type of wood (luan), the size of the rounds (18 inch), the color of stain, where they can get the paint and remaining supplies to complete the project. They utilized stencil vinyl to paint the words onto the board. This was new to almost every single participant there, but they were eager to learn and loved the results. They then picked out the greenery that they wished to use, and the additional decorations they wanted on their signs. My staff assistant pre-made the bows, solely for the ease and time saved. We had stations set up with hot glue guns and staple guns.

By the time the class was over, the ladies were overjoyed with what they had created and were very grateful for me offering the class. Several of them wanted to offer the class to their county clubs and even the FCS agents wanted to learn how to teach the class. 

We ended up scheduling an additional class in both Robertson and Fleming Counties that allowed over 35 people the ability to learn this skill. Overall, this one project had a reach of at least 62 participants that may have never been able to make their own door hanger before.