Creating an agriculture booster club for the 4H program makes a lot of sense. The 4H program itself is a very important program for kids that teaches them many lifelong skills and you show a lot of support for this program and the kids when you create a 4H booster club. Your agriculture booster club is one that should be taken seriously as it will require both hands-on involvements as well as moral support and fundraising efforts.
What is 4H Club?
Created over 100 years ago, the 4H club as we know it originally started as an agriculture based club. “The idea of practical and “hands-on” learning came from the desire to connect public school education to country life. Building community clubs to help solve agricultural challenges was a first step toward youth learning more about the industries in their community.”
In 1902 the club was created under the name “the tomato club” or “the corn growing club.” It wasn’t until 1910 that the 4 leaf clover symbol came to be, and the name shortly changed shortly after in 1912 to 4H.
Despite these subtle changes and massive expansion over the country, agriculture still plays a huge part in the 4H club. Today’s 4H club focuses heavily on global food security, climate change, and sustainable energy by covering topics ranging from robotics and environmental protection to computer science.
If you create a 4H booster club for this group of kids, you are helping to increase the positive environment in which they learn as well as help to fund the projects and increase their opportunities to gain even more hands on knowledge and experiences.
With so many great benefits in this program for kids, you can imagine why it would be beneficial to add a 4H club (and create a 4H booster club) in your school. An agriculture booster club may not be something seen at every school, but it can definitely help to set your student’s educational experiences apart from other mainstream schools- and for the better.
The Benefit of Agriculture Booster Clubs
These days there are many students have never been to a farm or owned a garden. Elementary school booster clubs can work to help introduce these things to students at a young age. As the child ages, middle school booster clubs or high school booster clubs can step in and help to continue the educational program into young adulthood.
When students get to experience 4H in their school and get continued support from school booster clubs, they gain a great sense of community and school morale. Not only that, but it gives them a fun outlet where they can learn without feeling overwhelmed with textbooks. Being able to stick your hands in the dirt, watch a seedling grow into a tree or caring for a farm animal are things that can help to shape their young minds and interests.
These students will learn how and why things grow and behave the way that they do. This can easily spark a deeper interest in agricultural work or botany. These experiences help to create well rounded students that understand the food they find in the grocery store didn’t just “magically appear.” They’ll have a greater appreciation for the working class and farmers out there helping to keep the food supply readily available as well.
So as you can see when you create a 4H booster club, you’re not only setting up students for lifelong success, but you’re helping to shape them into incredible human beings with a deep understanding and appreciation for the community.
How Your 4H Booster Club Increases Interest in Farming
With your farming booster club, you can do a lot more than just dig in the dirt and brush horses. There are so many different ways that you can help to support the youth of today in their 4H program.
When you create a booster club, you create a nonprofit group dedicated to financially, morally, and physically helping the group activity. To found a booster club means that you will go above and beyond to make sure that the students have everything that they need in order to survive, thrive, and continue without fail.
Many group activities (this one included) comes at a cost. Although a 4H club doesn’t have athletic gear or musical instruments to purchase, it does have several other things that they regularly need including tools for gardening or helping with animals. If horses are ridden, then there is added gear costs and possibly uniforms there too.
A lot of 4H clubs use their local fairs as a way to showcase their animals. They raise an animal and then enter it into the fair to show how hard they worked at raising it and try for a chance to win a ribbon. Some even sell the animal afterward as a form of raising more money for the club.
All of this, of course, costs money. There could be an entry fee for the fair, plus the cost of transportation and feed while they’re there. Not to mention all of the costs associated with raising the animal in the first place. With your agriculture booster clubs, you can raise a lot of these funds so that students can focus on the work they love doing, and not so much about the financial aspect of it all.
Other Ways That Your 4H Booster Club Supports Agriculture
Your booster club can help to make a positive impact on the 4H program by helping to reduce costs, but it can also help the students an opportunity at affording specialty training classes that they may not have otherwise been able to afford. This helps to strengthen their education and open the door to more experiences.
One of the best ways to help your 4H club (besides monetary involvement) is simply through promotion. By promoting your 4H program all over the community you can increase the involvement and support that it receives. Not only that, but you can increase the interest in this group for students who may wish to join.
When you create a 4H booster club, you’re doing so much to help the program and the students within. You’ll see an increase in the school morale, especially around the times of the year when the 4H club students get to show off their hard work (like fair season).
You can also help to improve the student’s in school education when you create a 4H booster club by providing homework help and helping them to study for upcoming tests. With just one booster club, you can do so much good for this program in many different ways and create a positive impact on students, the school, and the community that lasts for a lifetime.
