OSU Extension in Josephine County: 4-H Impacts the Community (in English)

I'm in photography, archery, food preservation, and food nutrition. I chose archery because I'd done archery previously, and I really enjoyed it. I found it very fun and I just wanted to continue it and get better at it. Photography... I've always had a slight interest in it, but I didn’t really know how to be good at photography, so I thought it’d help me advance that skill. And I've always been really big into cooking and whatnot. So my mom put me in those two cooking classes to help me learn more about culinary itself.

Culinary classes, like some of the culinary clubs. You're not going to learn that normally, even if you're going to a culinary class. Some of the stuff you just can't– it’s just not the same. And photography, you get to actually go out and advance those skills, hands-on. When let's say you're taking an art class, you can't really do that on the scale that 4-H does it. I'm going to do bunnies next year, so I'm going to do more animal stuff and I'm pretty excited about that. I'm a little nervous, but I'm just trying to keep positive energy, positive spirit, you know? I got a bunny and I'm just so excited to learn new things about him.

I think 4-H and the Extension office means to me, I think it's a very core part of the community that people don't really realize. I feel like it's kind of behind the scenes a lot, instead of like Dutch Bros, you know– that’s really out there, social media wise, a big part of the community, when 4-H really isn't that, it's more behind the scenes, instead of upfront. You know it helps when a good part of the fair, it helps run events that are run at local schools and just around the town. It's important to me because it just does so much, that I don't think a lot of people realize. Like going to the fair, I know it seems like such a small thing, but so many people put so much work into it. And I feel like whenever I go there, it kind of shows my support not only for the people that put the effort into making it happen but also the community as a whole.

My favorite 4-H memory is probably when I got my first bullseye in archery. I was very excited, but my sister was standing right next to me and I didn’t want to show off. So I was just like, [fist pump]. I was like smiling ear to ear. I was very excited and I ran over to my mom and I was like, “Mom, I did it!” “I did it!” She was like, “Oh, cool.” Because she was also working. I was like, “No, look, I did it!” I was very proud of myself. I was very excited.