4-H on the rebound as youth return

Jul 27, 2022

GUELPH — The non-profit 4-H clubs have been a staple in the life of young rural Canadians for over a century. The youth organization boasts some 23,000 members across the country and is now recovering from huge memberships losses under COVID restrictions

The pandemic saw the end of 4-H Achievement Days as well as in-person events as Ontario 4-H members and volunteers dropped by more than 50 %, from 7,866 (5,906 youth members and 1,960 volunteers) to 3,876.

4-H Ontario manager of communications Laura Goulding says things are looking up for this year as youth memberships alone in June were at 3,497. “4-H saw a decline in participation for 2020 and 2021, but the club has topped its goal of a 23% increase in memberships for 2022,” she said.

Goulding says about two-thirds of members are returning and 33% are new faces.

4-H also recently received a $150,000 grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation to support participant recruitment.

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Video: Learning to Wrench From Dad the Hard Way

Harvest is a week out and the farm picked this week to fall apart. The truck needs a battery, the barn curtain's got a problem, and the corn and beans are telling us we're out of time to get it all fixed.

So it's a full day of wrenching. Tork supervises while I get the truck back running, then we're out at the hog barn where one rusted up part has the whole curtain system hung up. Ladder work, cable work, and a little dad-and-son disagreement about the right way to do it. We close it out walking the fields, shelling beans and checking corn, because whether everything's fixed or not, harvest starts when harvest starts.

Chapters: 00:00 Everything breaks the week before harvest 01:00 Tork supervises while I fix the truck 12:30 Out to the barn to find the curtain problem 14:30 One rusty part hung up the whole curtain 20:00 Running the curtain cable from the ladder 24:00 Walking the beans and corn before harvest 26:30 Wrapping up

We're a 6th generation family farm in southeast Iowa showing the real ups and downs of pig farming and row crop farming. No script, just the work. Subscribe and follow along.

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