This subject is right down my alley, as a 4H youth program educator, with poultry as one of my areas I can speak from the other point of view.
\"You can lead a horse to water, but you can\'t make them drink\". Its the same with anything, including 4H.
Our County didn\'t have any poultry or rabbits for 10 years. I was brought in to handle all small livestock as well as to reinstate a poultry program.
The 1st year, I held monthly meetings/workshops and quite a lot of families participated. I handed out information about every aspect of poultry. I had speakers come in, etc.
I also arranged a farm tour with 2 of the 4 farms specializing in poultry. Participation was good.
The second year, we started out with about 3 families, and by the end of the year only 1 family came to the meetings. I also held a workshop inviting the public to attend, and the public out numbered the 4H ers.
So, I decided to stop doing the monthly meetings. Everyone had excuses for why they couldn\'t come. Its very discouraging to try to develop a program and not have any participation.
But wait, guess how many showed up at the County Fair?
Each year the poultry numbers grew. I had some kids show up I hadn\'t seen before.
Some of them had birds that looked great, they were the ones that kept coming to the events. Some others never came to a meeting, so it was obvious they didn\'t do anything to get the bird ready for the show.
The kids that had parents that took an interest in what they were doing, did the best. My experience with this is, that probably many extensions go through similar things. Frankly,
you want to just give up and say the heck with it.
4H educators are to provide resources for the leaders and youth. Leaders are supposed to be the ones that teach them about whatever their club is involved in. Yes, leaders don\'t necessarily have to know anything, but if they don\'t ask, or come to workshops to learn, we can\'t make them.
I don\'t expect 4H to get better. Everything is about \"Youth Development\" which is good, but the old 4H no longer exists.
People are too busy, kids do so many things they don\'t have time to come to meetings. 4H is struggling to get kids involved, but the numbers go down every year.
Sterling