Success StoryMaking 4-H Visible Community Wide



Making 4-H Visible Community Wide

Author: Verlene Congleton

Planning Unit: Jackson County CES

Major Program: 4-H Youth Development Programming

Plan of Work: Leadership and Community Development

Outcome: Initial Outcome

4-H has always been in our community however our local 4-H Council wanted to try new marketing ideas to make 4-H more visible in our county outside of our 4-H Clubs.  Our county fair is always at the beginning of our program year.  Our 4-H Fair exhibits are always popular even more so this year with a total of 245 4-H Fair Exhibits!!  At the end of the Fair week there is always a parade.  This year the 4-H Council, with the help of the 4-H Teens, decided to do 4-H Float for the parade.  They felt this would be a good opportunity to highlight our 4-H program and reach clientele that would not otherwise see 4-H.  The theme for the parade this year was 'County Wide, County Pride'.  Our float was named , 'Jackson County 4-H is Kentucky Proud'.  We invited the oldest 4-H'er in the county who was 81 years young to ride on the float which was made like a Farmer's Market Booth with the 4-H Teens and a  banner promoting KY Proud products and KY 4-H.  We also had T-shirts made that marketed our county 4-H and a special one for the oldest 4-H'er that read, 'Jackson County 4-H since 1945', the year he joined 4-H! The 4-H Teens also threw out 4-H candy to the crowd as we made our way through the parade.  Everyone was ecstatic to learn that our float won the top award of $100.00 for the best organization float which was announced that night during the fair events.  Our local newspaper also did a front page article on our float and our oldest 4-H member. Another way to market our 4-H program,  our local radio station, at the request of our 4-H Council also did 4-H Trivia for us during Fall Break.  The youth that won the trivia picked up her prize, donated by our 4-H Council, at our 4-H Office.  In the month of November our 4-H Council and Teens are also marketing the 4-H Holiday Dinner Show.  Our youth will perform and showcase their talents while adults and families enjoy dinner prepared by our 4-H volunteers.  Because of all the 4-H marketing in the community we recently received $500.00 donated to us by the local UNITE organization to use for our 4-H Teens to attend the UK Teen Conference in the Summer of 2019.