FDD & Junior Leaders

Farm Discovery Days is quickly approaching, and the final details are starting to iron out! Today I helped Mark put together the schedule of the 2 day event. We have 718 youth registered to come. There are four sessions (Wed AM, Wed PM, Thurs AM, Thurs PM) and our biggest group will be 12 classes (all coming in around 8:45am) We have a wide variety of stations. We have Animals: Hogs, Horses, Sheep, Goats, Beef, Dairy Beef, Chickens and Rabbits. Education: FB, Master Gardeners, Corn Plastic and Hamburger Tree. Activities: Yogurt and a Carriage Ride. It was a challenge to try and figure out how to get the kids to see all the sessions in a two hour period! It finally came down to breaking them into threes, and rotating.

Once we got the schedule figured out, I was able to go out and see the children's garden. I was really suprised at how beautiful it was (even without a lot of the flowers and garden decorations) I took a lot of photos, you can check them out at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2382883&l=26494&id=12428139 There are different themes to each area of the garden. Kay is in charge of the garden (she is the educator for Master Gardeners) They have just started putting things together for the garden and it is scheduled to formally open the beginning of May. The neat part about the garden is that they host summer programs that are educational for youth and adults. The garden is also located right downtown, so it is a popular area to sit and eat lunch. The garden is a unique program in that there are not very many in the state. I can't wait to see it once Kay gets it ready for the up coming year. She said that over three days she had about 100 visitors a day.


This evening I went with the Junior Leaders to Putnam county to visit with their Junior Leaders. They conducted business, and then taught a few leadership games to the group. Each person made a "question beachball" and they were encouraged to take it back to their 4-H clubs. I think that our Junior Leaders had a ball with the group, and I hope that it encourages them to transition to leadership roles in their county. I was sad that only 5 of the 18 were able to make it, but it is the busy season for most youth.


Tomorrow I will be going to Columbus to meet with Dr. Scheer regarding my internship so far! I hope that I can make everything I've do so far fit into my portfolio, and really show how much I have been learning so far. Next week will be super busy with a rockets program for a school, ASP on Monday, Chick Embryology on FDD setup on Tuesday, FDD on Wednesday and Thursday, and a Health and Safety Program on Saturday promoting 4-H and internet safety. I'm really excited to be doing so much in my internship!