Youth Development (Bernalillo County)

For the third year in a row I made myself available to 4th grade teachers who were teaching New Mexico History. The Uniquely New Mexico curriculum works well with their lesson plans. Again this year I went to several 4th grade classes talking about the importance of New Mexico agriculture and well as did cooking and craft activities with the kids.

January 18th was Afterschool awareness day at the legislature. Afterschool programs from around the state set up booths and spoke to lawmaker about the importance of quality afterschool programs in New Mexico. As the Afterschool Ambassador I did a press conference about the importance of children having meaningful and enriching afterschool opportunities, 4-H being one of the long standing excellent youth development programs.

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP)Grant that I am P.I. for provided funds for hiring a county agent that reports to the McKinley County Director. His efforts had the following evaluation results:
• 95.83% of the participants from Fort Wingate High School made life skill gains from pre-program to post-program in Communication, and Useful/Marketable skills. This same percentage was also indicated for gains in tools and skills in GIS/GPS. Results below are from the Fort Wingate High School 4-H school enrichment program. Using the Targeting Life Skills Evaluation Tool, analysis of quantitative data indicates the following:

In terms of the life skill, communication, surveys indicated:

• An increase of average 1.82 to 3.5 for the students in terms of opportunity to practice the exchange of thoughts, information, or messages between individuals using speech, writing, gestures, and artistic expression

• An increase of average 1.79 to 3.5 for the students in terms of opportunity to make a presentation of their project in a classroom setting

• An increase of average 1.85 to 3.5 for the students in terms of opportunity to clearly state my thoughts, feelings, and ideas to others while presenting the projects in a classroom setting

In terms of life skill, useful/marketable skills, surveys indicated:

• An increase of average 1.97 to 3.5 for the students in terms of having useful/marketable skills to have the abilities wanted by employers and needed to hold a job

• An increase of average 2.14 to 3.54 for the students in terms of following instructions as they are given to them

• An increase of average 1.97 to 3.5 for the students in terms of contributing as a member of a team

• An increase of average 1.81 to 3.45 for the students in terms of keeping accurate and useful records

In terms of reading topography map, using a compass, using a GPS unit, and using GIS mapping software, surveys indicated:

• An increase of 87% of knowledge in the areas of tools used in project for mapping

• An increase of 63% in the reading of topography map

• An increase of 75% in the use of compass

• An increase of 68% in the GIS/GPS application use

• An increase of 82% in the use of GPS unit

• An increase of 90% in the use of GIS software

Operation Great Pumpkin, 2006
Operation Great Pumpkin is an annual event for the families of the Trumble Neighborhood in south east Albuquerque as a safe and fun alternative to trick-or-treating.
The Trumble neighborhood is diverse minority area and we estimated that about 75% of the people attending the event was Hispanic with the majority non-English speaking. Angleo, Native American, Black , and Oriental made up the other 25% attending the event. The urban 4-H program was involved in the planning, set up and provided two interactive stations for the 1500+ kids who attended this year’s event.
For the younger children (ages1-5) a child’s wading pool was filled with feed corn then wrapped prizes and snacks were buried in the corn. The young ones dug in the corn for prizes and had a great time uncovering their treasures. The school age children were sent through an obstacle course of balancing, tossing, jumping and stacking. Other youth serving organizations also participated in this event as well as community resource people. Tamara Rowland the 4-H Home Economist help with Operation Great Pumpkin along with four teens. I think we all had a great time!

“Lights on for Afterschool” is an Afterschool Alliance national annual event to draw attention to what kids are doing out-of-school time. This year’s Lights on for Afterschool was October 12th with over 7,500 events taking place around the country. 4-H has always been a big player in this arena and Lights on for Afterschool gives us a chance to showcase some of the exciting work we do. This year the Albuquerque event took place at the Cesar Chavez Community Center with several hundred people attending the event.
The urban 4-H program worked with the New Mexico Afterschool Alliance in the planning and set up of this event. We also had a display table and answered questions from the public and policy makers who attended. The urban 4-H as well as the traditional 4-H clubs of Bernalillo County were showcased. Tamara Roland worked with me this year bringing some county counsel kids along. The 4-H mascot Chris Clover even made an appearance at Lights on for Afterschool.