Tornado of Activities

Mar 23, 2018
3 min read

THANK YOU National 4-H Council and sponsors/ donors for the continued support of the National 4-H Youth Advisory Committee. This past week, I attended the Legacy Dinner, Global Food Security Symposium, and numerous meetings with #trueleaders. These opportunities continue to open doors and grant me experiences that are unimaginable.

On the first day we met with our cohorts. I am the chair of the Alumni Acquisition Cohort, and our agenda included discussing the data that was collected from the survey of which over 1,300 people responded to. These were some of the overarching findings:

Research:

How will we be different and engage our alumni?
What does transition mean and look like? (from member to alumni)
Many people are not registered as alumni… Why?
Not aware it exists
Not aware of benefits
Important:
Networking
Local
Assisting
How do we provide that?
Change culture once you are 18 you are done with 4-H from “you are too old” to “there are more opportunities for me.” This will be done through:
Awareness
Education
Opportunity
Social Media preferences of this age group:

Facebook
Instagram
Snapchat
Pinterest

We, as a cohort, also formulated our vision statement that reads, “As young 4-H alumni, we are dedicated to fostering a meaningful relationship that encourages personal development through long-term engagement. We strive to accomplish this through awareness/education and commitment to giving back to past, present, and future 4-H’ers.” This will be achieved using the following pillars:

Awareness/ Education (connection)
Giving Back (4-H story, involvement, monetary)
Personal Development (network/ mentor/ relationship)
Early & long term engagement

We then put our overall goal into words; “Our objective is to grow this number by 43.5% to reach a total of 10,000 additional young alumni by the time our term ends on June 2020.”

On the second day, I attended an Ideas Forum at the Microsoft Innovation Center that discussed the sustainability of rural agriculture. I then attended the National 4-H Board of Trustees External Affairs Committee meeting at the Ritz Carlton. While there, I presented about a potential young alumni opportunity. Hopefully, I will be able to share more soon! The presentation went so well that I was then offered an internship with Dupont from Vice President, Public Policy and Chief Sustainability Officer, Krysta Harden. This is something I will be looking into! Then, it was off to a meeting with David Cohen, the Senior Executive Vice President of Comcast Corporation. We discussed his career path and he offered advice to us about our future. Thank you, Comcast, for your support of the 4-H program. Then, it was off to the Legacy Dinner. We raised $1,050,000 for 4-H! Thank you, donors and sponsors!

On the third day, we started our day off with a meeting with Steve Barr, founder of Osborn and Barr. He has been a very generous supporter of the Youth Advisory Committee. It was then off to lunch, where I sat with Edward Beckwith, a lawyer from Baker Hostetler that works for National 4-H Council. He was extremely interested in the first ever Ohio 4-H LGBTQ+ Summit, of which I am a committee member for. Then, Elizabeth Sanders, Fundraising Cohort Chair, and I presented our ideas on young alumni engagement to the Board of Trustees. They provided a lot of important feedback and insights that will help us.

On the fourth day, I attended the Global Food Security Symposium for Youth Day. I learned a lot from the day that was filled with panelists from all over the world. We discussed what attracts young people to agriculture, how to make it more appealing, and the future of the industry. While it was extremely educational, I was surprised by the level of youth representation on the panels, considering the topics that were discussed. I would have liked to have seen a larger presence of high schoolers to undergraduates. During the day, I met Erik Pederson, the Director of Government Relations for The Chicago Council on Global Affairs. I also spent a majority of the day with Appiah Kwaku Boateng (Boat), the Executive Director of 4-H Ghana. Ohio State Extension employee, Dustin Homan, has worked closely with him to develop the program, and therefore we had a lot to discuss.