AMES, Iowa--Community service ranks high on the Obama administration’s agenda. President Obama and Vice President Biden are calling on Americans to serve their communities, schools and organizations. The objective is to enable all Americans to serve to meet the nation’s challenges, integrate service into learning and invest in the nonprofit sector, according to the official White House Web site.

The service priority is focused on engaging Americans of all ages, including middle school and high school students, in 50 hours of community service per year. While this could be a difficult task for some of Iowa’s middle school and high school students, Iowa 4-H’ers will have no problem acquiring 50 hours of service.

4-H’ers are regularly taking part in citizenship and community service projects within their local communities.

Kelsie Cass, an Adair County 4-H’er, recently completed a six-month service project that taught low-income women in her community cooking skills through a series of workshops. Participants partnered with female mentors to learn cooking techniques and try recipes they could make for their families. Through the weekly sessions the women also gained social networks and learned of resources available to them within the community.

After completing the workshop, each participant received a cookbook containing the recipes she’d made.

“Participants learned how to be more confident in their skills while meeting new friends that they could rely on through this project,” Cass said.

The cooking workshop was a deemed a success thanks to the help of the community. Cass’ 4-H club also helped with the project by babysitting the workshop participants’ children. Through financial contributions and community members volunteering their mentoring efforts, “It took a lot of help to make this project a success,” Cass explained.

“This is only one example of the types of service projects 4-H’ers take on in their communities,” said Sue Bogue, a 4-H youth development program specialist with Iowa State University Extension. “There are also Pioneer Community Improvement and Iowa’s Promise Youth grants available to young people in Iowa, which allow us to track the total number of 4-H’ers involved in service projects and hours volunteered.” 

Grant opportunities provide 4-H clubs and youth groups with funding used to cover the initial costs of their service projects.

Nathan Pattee, an 11-year-old 4-H’er from East Pottawattamie County, received a 2008 Pioneer Community Improvement Grant. Pattee and his Botna Valley Achievers 4-H Club used the grant funding to replant a flower garden in Edgington Memorial Park in Avoca that was destroyed by floods.

“We received $50 from a local lady who saw our club working on one of her regular walks through the park. She said she always enjoyed seeing our garden and wanted to help with the expense of purchasing new flowers,” said Pattee. “We got a local landscaper to agree to help and got old street bricks from Avoca. The city council even agreed to deliver them when needed.”

Replanting the Edgington Memorial Park flower garden took 20 4-H youth and nine adult volunteers to complete the 192-hour project.

Thirty-seven 4-H clubs were awarded 2009 Pioneer Community Improvement Grants. This year’s Iowa’s Promise Youth Grants awarded 39 youth-adult partnerships with funding for community improvement as well.

4-H is a community of 6 million young people across America learning leadership, citizenship and life skills. In Iowa, the 4-H program is a part of Iowa State University Extension and headquartered on the ISU campus in Ames. For more information about 4-H or how to get involved contact your ISU Extension county office.

-30-