"Fair Days!" Aka Project Based 4-H Summer Day Camps

     When tasked with researching, planning, implementing, and evaluating a project this summer I was more than a little stumped. My internship is in a community that I was not familiar with nor did I know hardly anyone in the community. How could I possibly pick something to do to benefit a community that I knew so very little about? Within my first week of working at the LaRue County Extension office though, I knew exactly what I would be doing.  LaRue County is a rural community located in Central Kentucky. It is the birthplace of Abraham Lincoln and home to a 2 week long county fair, week 1 and week 2 separated by a whole month. There are very few summer programs for youth to be involved in and this sparked the idea for my project. The first week of fair holds the joys and wonders of the carnival rides, sheep show and rabbit show. The second week of fair entails the truck pull, all other livestock shows (including chicken), and all 4-H exhibits. Normal participation in the second week of fair has been on a steady decline for the past several years and Misty (LaRue County 4-H agent) was looking for a way to boost participation, to encourage youth to enter items into the floral hall. From this, combined with information given about the county in the county profile, we decided my project would be to plan and host various day camps different weeks of the summer that would educate the youth on relevant and interesting topics but would also allow them to complete different projects that could be entered into the fair.

     We set up 3 different day camps, the first to be centered around forestry and the outdoors. Here, youth learned to identify several native Kentucky trees and collected leaves from 10 of them to complete a first year leaf collection. The second day camp youth learned about soil, plants, how to make plants thrive in containers, decorated their own containers and planted a couple of tomato plants and various annual flowers. The third and final day camp was centered around crafting. Youth were able to make a basket, design and paint a canvas, make two scrapbook pages, and designed a thank you card while also learning about the importance of sending thank you cards. All of these days went off without a hitch and seemed to be enjoyed by all the youth who attended.
     Never before I have asked a nine year old for serious response on how well they like a program but I did after each of these events. All of the events were rated on average at a 3.5/4 or higher. The youth brought in several of their completed projects and remissness together on the fun times they had while completing the projects.
     Real life application of this project comes in many lessons. First, no matter how much you think you have prevented a group of young kids from keeping a mess, they will find a way to make a mess. Second, the amount of resources and people willing to help make these days as educational and exciting for the youth is amazing. I will fully admit that I did not and still do not know everything about the topics discussed in these day camps. But, with the help of the local conversation office, Department of Forestry, 4-H club volunteers, and the extension staff, the youth learned lots of juicy information and walked away with more knowledge and exciting projects than I ever thought possible.
     Waking into the LaRue County Extension office on May 9th, I never thought I could have pulled off planning three, six hour days camps. I did not know the supportive community, the volunteers, or the youth. Now, after ten weeks, I can say that while LaRue County might be a sleepy, little, rural town, it is rich and thriving with supportive parents and grandparents and excited youth who love doing hands on activities and learning new information.