Michaelyn Sloan was looking for something her family could do together when she founded the Green Chargers 4-H Club seven years ago in Country Club Hills.
”I have always been a hyperactive adult and a starter,” says Sloan, 41. She and her husband, Howard, moved to Frankfort from Country Club Hills about a year ago, but she continues to help direct the club. They have four children: Anjelica, 13; Leah and Gabe, both 10; and Luke, 6. Three of them are in the club, but Luke is too young for 4-H, which has an age limit of 10 to 18.
After attending a 4-H meeting at a friend`s house in a nearby unincorporated area, Sloan was impressed, she says. ”Since there wasn`t a club in our area, I contacted the Cook County Cooperative Extension Services office, and a county coordinator came to my home with materials to explain 4-H to me.”
With the information, Sloan presented a slide show and distributed the 4- H material to a group of her friends and neighborhood parents who met in her living room.
”Most of the parents had had prior experience . . . with Boy or Girl Scouts, but they still wanted to be involved in an organization with their kids,” she says. ”They were willing to give 4-H a try, and it just took off from there.”
The club`s appeal was the parents` direct involvement in their children`s activities, Sloan says. The Green Chargers has seven participating families with 22 children.
At least one parent in each family must be present at the meetings.
”Through the years, many parents have become close personal friends, and the meetings have become social outlets for the parents as well as for the kids,” Sloan says.
Sloan says she believes the club`s philosophy about families is important because family members often lose touch with one another. ”Society is chaotic-family values are declining,” she says. ”Society`s pressures infringe on family relationships because people don`t have enough time to communicate each other`s concerns. The 4-H organization is a concentrated effort to strengthen bonds within families.”
The group`s coleader, Beverly Fry of Country Club Hills, agrees with Sloan. ”Four-H gets kids involved, and as the kids learn, you can see their self-esteem and confidence build,” she says. ”It`s a very good feeling to see a kid give a speech or demonstration and then come off stage and say `I did it!` ”
”I`ve learned a ton of stuff and have fun with my friends,” says Maggy Lilly, 13, who has been a member for five years and a junior leader one year. As a junior leader, she helps younger members with projects and plans camping trips.
”You have fun, but you actually learn a lot of things while you have fun,” she says. ”You don`t realize that by doing a project you are learning, but you do.”
Members must complete at least two projects a year. The goal is to help them develop ”life skills,” such as responsibility, dependability, honesty, cooperation, poise and punctuality. A typical example would be a project on dog-raising, in which the member must feed, groom, train and care for a dog raised from a puppy.
The 4-H motto says: ”As a member of 4-H: I pledge my Head to clearer thinking, my Heart to greater loyalty, my Hands to larger service, my Health to better living for my club, my community, my country and my world.”
”This motto is the premise with which we try to conduct ourselves and our club,” Sloan says.
Fry, 36, became involved in the club in 1984 because she wanted a social outlet for herself and her daughter, Adrienne, now 9. (An exception to the age limit was made for her.) Her son, Christopher, 12, has been in the club four years.
Each project must be done individually, but the parents are closely involved, Fry says. Many parents are project leaders and give demonstrations in their fields of expertise, which may be a profession or hobby. Projects include papier-mache, woodworking, building and launching model rockets, painting, electrical work, collecting herbs, forestry, candlewicking, photography, fishing, gardening and caring for fish.
”The parents are the guides, but the kids must do all the work by themselves,” Fry says.
The members` goal is to show their projects at the South Cook County 4-H Fair, held in July at St. Francis Woods, New Lenox. At this one-day fair, members from 23 clubs will compete for first-, second- and third-place ribbons and other prizes. The first-place winners will go to the Illinois State Fair in Springfield in August and compete against other winners from around the state.
In September, when the 4-H year begins, the children choose from more than 120 subjects designated by the 4-H national office in Washington, D.C. They apply to enter the fairs and receive materials from the extension services office. While working on their projects, they fill out progress sheets, which they submit to the office before May 1. They also must write statements on what they hope and expect to accomplish.
The children complete more forms at the end of the project on what they have learned, how it was useful and whether they would do it again. They must also give a speech or demonstration about their projects at the county fair.
”The kids are on their honor to do all the tasks for completing their projects,” Fry says. The writing exercises and forms help them stay on track, she says.
The next year, they can build on their knowledge by continuing their projects at a more advanced level, such as making a step stool in woodworking the first year, a rocking chair the second and a chest of drawers the third. They also can try something new. They must set new goals each year.
”In 4-H, the kids learn about subjects and skills that a parent wouldn`t think to teach them, such as making bread,” Sloan says. ”Because people aren`t living in extended families, some information is not being passed on to children, the kind of experience and knowledge that can best be taught by a grandparent.”
The children may pick projects related to their hobbies. Five-year member Tiffany Tomaszewski, for example, has done photography, cake decorating and macrame because she was already interested in those subjects. ”You learn about people and yourself and about your own expectations,” she says. She has completed 15 to 20 projects.
Another member, Tommy Mutz Jr., also picked some favorite topics when he chose rocket shooting and working with papier-mache. ”It`s fun to do the projects and do things with other people-things that you wouldn`t do in school,” says Tommy, 12, who has been a member for four years.
The goal of 4-H in general is to help children prepare for responsible adult life, Sloan says.
”Any child who has been in 4-H for an extended time has had the experience of giving public speeches and 10-minute demonstrations for an audience of at least 100. The kids have also presided over meetings and taught younger kids some of the skills they have learned.”
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For more information about 4-H in Cook County, call the Cook County Extension Services office, 532-4369.
