What I Learned In 4-H
If you are in 4-H or any activity and wondering what is this for or how will this benefit you as an adult? It will. If you’re an inquiring teen or a tired youth leader looking for a little peace of mind to know that this is all worth it, read on. ;)
In preparation to be the keynote speaker for the Hawai`i State 4-H Program’s annual conference, I thought I’d share a little of my 10 years of experience in the program from early elementary years through my Senior Year of High School.
Though there were times I felt like quitting, there are 4 very valuable things I took away from the experience that are helping me today as a working adult, business owner, and mom.
Skills & Interests
Service and discipline
Leadership
Relationships
1. Skills & Interests
Through the various opportunities offered through 4-H, I was able to discover my God-given skills and interests. It’s funny how the main events for us (Food Show, Fashion Show, and Communications Fair) were avenues to figuring out what I was good at, what I was not good at, what I was interested in, and what I didn’t care for. Sometimes, you don’t know until you try.
Here’s what I discovered then and how I see it playing out today! For the Food Show, I did not enjoy finding a recipe, prepping, and following and cooking. What I did love was picking my dishware and displaying to my heart content’s after being given a theme. For the Fashion Show, I did not enjoy looking for patterns, fabrics, and the long hours of sewing, but I loved accessorizing and getting up on stage and modeling. And for the Communications Fair, I loved doing the photography and naming my photographs, but never placed or won awards. However, the speech side of it memorizing and reciting poems and stories was my heart and where I thrived.
Looking back now, I see that the things I don’t do well or don’t enjoy, I worked may way through it until I could find someone I could hire who could do it better and who enjoyed it. After 10 years, I am not mainly in the position of my company doing the work I love most. I am coming up with ideas vs finding recipes and my team does a lot of the prep and chocolate making. I am working on the display, the designs, and packaging to put them in. I do a little modeling for our marketing, I do the staging for our photos and have a vision in mind, but utilize the talents of a professional photographer when I can, and I continue to tell stories as the business owner.
erin’s tip: Pay attention to what you are finding interesting and what you’re naturally excelling in. These may be hints to what to study in college or find to find a job where you can do more of it. For everything else, make friends, recognize the skills of others, appreciate your colleagues and know you can’t do it all, but together, you can.
2. Service & Discipline
4-H is where I think I first learned about community service and showing up to serve and help others. Honestly, there were times that I didn’t feel doing it, but the year after year process of being disciplined to show up and serve, was slowly building my character. It was expanding my heart to help others. It was teaching me that it’s not all about me and what I want.
By the time I was in high school, I was familiar with clubs and service projects and that we have a lot to give and a lot to be grateful for. Now as an adult, I absolutely love serving in my community. The exposure over the years taught me that there are a ton of needs out there and many different ways you can help so serving isn’t always a clean up or donation. It can even be volunteering in ways that utilize those skills and interests. For me, it’s serving in leadership roles on a board or volunteering time as a speaker and even a 4-H judge.
erin’s tip: There’s a place and a need for what you have to offer. You’ll know when you find it, but you can’t find it until you just sign up and show up.
3. Leadership
As we grew up in 4-H, we eventually became the young leaders for the younger ones, aka the clover buds. We got to help them like the big kids once helped us and suddenly, someone was following in our footsteps. Over time, we had the opportunity to run for our county board and eventually represent our state at a national 4-H event. We had always thought of leaders as just the adults, but under their care, they trusted us to step up and lead.
At the national level, we saw that leaders could look very different too. We felt at the top of our game on Oahu and then learned that other places mainly raised produce and livestock over food and fashion shows. It’s a much bigger world with so many things we still didn’t know. We also had to learn that even if we were now the ones winning the blue and purple ribbons at events, we had to be humble ourselves and encourage everyone who congratulated us. And if we weren’t winning, we had to be able to still lead beside our fellow 4-Her who took home the perpetual trophy that we were hoping for.
erin’s tip: If someone gives you an opportunity to step up, take the lead and learn. And if someone asks you to step down, take the lead and learn.
4. Relationships
Finally, the thing I will most remember is that 4-H was my thing with my mom. It was the thing we did together, she and I. It was our Friday night meeting routine and the thing I saw her do with other moms while I met with my friends. The moms of our club, Ku`uipo, created a safe space for us to learn and grown and outside of our club meetings, 4-H was a place where we learned with other clubs and parents like Uncle Steve Nagano, Aunty Claire Nakatsuka, Aunty Rachel Horkiawa, and the late Aunty Rose Saito. They kept an eye on us and over the years we grow closer and are still in touch to this day.
This experience taught me that I want to have a thing with each of my own kids too. Our special place or special activity that we can do together year after year after year. I’m so glad my mom signed me up and wouldn’t let me quit. And when there were things she was trying to teach me and I wouldn’t listen, someone else at 4-H could step in and be a “mom” that I needed.
erin’s tip: If you want to have fun, you need to be in relationships. Start a club, join a club, or volunteer and you will find the relationships are the most rewarding part of it all.
I need to dig up photos to add to this blog, but simply writing this stirred up some fond memories. I think the specific story I am going to tell at the conference is of the pumpkin I grew for a Farm Fair!
The friends I made through 4-H, I have reconnected with through chocolates and they still support me to this day at Choco le`a. It’s neat to see how we are all grown up with our own families, our moms are still friends, and the cycle continues from one generation giving to the next.
The 4-H slogan, “Learn to do by doing” has always been something I carried with me into adulthood. And having rocks like this and the motto, “To make the best better,” gives youth a firm foundation to build upon. Repeating these things every single meeting and event year after year, means it is engrained in us. So much so, that even though I haven’t had to say it in 20+ years, I can still recite the 4-H pledge by heart (no Google search needed)!
“I pledge my head to clearer thinking, my heart to greater loyalty, my hands to larger service, and my health to better living, for my club, my community, my country and my world.”
I hope you will too!