Youth Development (Socorro County)

NM Boys and Girls Ranch program: The Agent spent time this year meeting with the administrators of the Boys and Girls Ranches. Up until now they have always participated in the Valencia County 4-H program but have recently begun inquiring about our program. The Ranches is located in Socorro County but they have a Belen address and their school falls under the Belen School District so they have always participating in Valencia County. However Valencia County has been experiencing a lot of friction between the 4-H and FFA and the Fair board and The Ranches did not feel that it was a healthy environment for their youth. We sat down with them and explained to them how we run our program and they made a decision to switch to Socorro County 4-H with the thought that it was a much better fit for their youth. We are very excited to have them in our program and have not heard a single word of opposition from anyone in the county thus far.

County Council/ Club Leadership: Youth serve in leadership roles at the club and county level by performing the following duties: Elected Officer, Event Coordinator, Pledge Leader, Caller, and Committee Chair/member. A district wide training is provided to all County Council Officer training them in the following areas: Leadership, Teamwork, Decision Making, Communication and Professionalism. Each Council was given the opportunity to work with an agent from another county to set their goals for the year. Following the district wide training, the county council officers were expected to train the club officer in their particular county. Socorro County Council Officer trained club officers on Leadership, Teamwork, Decision Making, Communication, and Parliamentary Procedure. 85% of youth actively involved in County and Club leadership gained knowledge and skills related to decision making, communication, social skills, accepting differences, leadership, contributing to group effort, teamwork, healthy lifestyle choices and goal setting. The agents also submitted an award application to the NAE4-HA for this event and were awarded a regional Excellence in Teamwork award for the Western Region.

The Socorro County Agents were requested to provide a leadership training for 4-H members in Union and Harding Counties. The Agents taught youth about what it means to be a good officer, what their office duties are, and communication, teamwork and decision making skills. Youth participated in an obstacle course in order to reinforce these skills being taught. Youth split up into groups and worked as a team to complete the course. 100% of the youth worked as a team and to make the correct decisions in order to successfully completed the task. Through this training youth learned life skills such as teamwork, decision-making, planning/organizing, goal setting, communication, cooperation and leadership.

Community Service: Every club in Socorro County is required to complete a community service project sometime throughout the year. Examples of community service projects were: Christmas tree set up at Good Sam’s; game days at Senior Center, served lunch at Senior Center during Spring Break and once a month during the summer, recycling aluminum can around town, Food Check-out and highway trash clean-up. 6 Socorro County Youth also applied for 4-H Community Service Scholarships which paid for them to attend a State Event. Some of these included: Saddle up for St. Jude, clean up around local fire hydrants, class field trips to Good Sam’s and Food Drive. Youth increased their knowledge and skills related to generosity and service learning, contributions to group efforts and responsible citizenship as evidenced by willingness to serve, appreciation of service opportunities and youth assuming leadership roles related to service. Results were reported during club meetings, in member’s record books, and in member’s final scholarship reports to the State 4-H Office.

Record books: Record books are one thing that is dreaded by the majority of our 4-H members. We have done things to minimize the heartburn for these youth. This year the Agents hosted several Record book workdays where youth could come to the Extension Office and get one on one help form the Extension Agents. Youth and parents were very appreciative of the help and we saw a 10% increase in the number of record books turned in. Through filling out record books youth are learning a variety of life skills such as responsibility, record keeping, critical thinking, goal setting, and planning/organizing. By completing their record book youth are then eligible for awards at the Annual 4-H Banquet. Every member who completes a record book receives a year completion pin and projects pins for the projects that they completed for the year. We also give everyone who turns in a record book a special gift in the hopes of providing an incentive to the youth who don’t already do so.

Stitch and Spoon Camp: On July 26-28 the Socorro County Extension Office hosted a Stitch and Spoon Camp at the Socorro Community Kitchen. The camp was limited to 20 youth, because of the nature of the projects and space limitations in the kitchen. As with the name “Stitch and Spoon”, youth learned the basics of Sewing and Cooking. 15 girls, 3 boys and 6 volunteer leaders attended the camp. The youth were split in half; half went to sewing and the other half in the kitchen with them switching after lunch. The first group in the kitchen were required to cook everyone lunch; Lupita Rincones, ICAN Nutrition Educator, taught the kids about kitchen safety, proper nutrition and ways to make their meals healthier. The afternoon session learned about different cooking utensils and what they’re used for, proper measuring techniques, and most importantly how to read a recipe. They then made chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter cookies, muffins and biscuits out of the 4-H Baking project book. On the sewing side, the youth learned the parts of a sewing machine, how thread a machine, sewing a straight line, curvy lines, corners, and circles. To practice these skills the youth made scrunchies and pillowcase utilizing the patterns out of the 4-H Beginning Sewing and Quilting project books. We also spent time learning how to can jelly and each youth made a batch of grape jelly both to enter into the fair and take home. All items made at the Stitch and Spoon camp were entered in the County Fair with all 1st place items going on to the NMSF. The two pillowcase that went on to the NMSF both received 2nd place ribbons.