Emily’s blog is designed to track the weekly “happenings” of a Hampshire County 4-Her traveling throughout Germany and Austria. She thinks of it as traveler’s log, and hopes you enjoy reading and following up on her travel as much as she enjoys creating her adventure journal!

Emily recently wrote:

Hi and greetings from Austria. I have so much information to relay and many new stories to tell. I would love for you to visit my IFYE blog: Travels of the Advanced 4-Her!
– Emily Evert

Please take a few moments to read about this West Virginia 4-Her traveling abroad and send her a note with your own thoughts and comments. You can visit Emily’s blog at: http://wvifye2008.blogspot.com/

It will soon be time for us to do the Corn Roast at the Stonewall Jackson Jubilee. The Jubilee will begin on Friday, August 29 and end on Monday, September 1. The Jubilee is a giant craft fair with a theme of history and authentic homemade crafts and food. There are many activities. The State 4-H Camps and the 4-H Agents Association sponsor a corn roast. Besides corn, we have sweet potatoes and baked potatoes roasted on an open pit and it is all very tasty and delicious. The real flavors come out of the food from cooking on the open pit.

We are looking for 4-H folks to volunteer to give us a five hour shift on one of those days. If you are interested, our shifts are as
follows:

10-2 12-5 3-8

If you are interested, please let me know at jeffrey.orndorff@mail.wvu.edu and let me know the day and shift you would like to work. We will add you to the list and they will have the list at the picnic pavilion once your
cross over the bridge to the airfield. We will also have lodging available to those that work for us and if you need that, I would need to know that as well. Our booth is located next to the pool in the upper end of camp.

We also need help on Thursday to do the setup and we will begin work
that day at 12:00 until we finish.

Thanks in advance for any help you can give.

Jeff

The West Virginia State Fair is now open and the grounds are full of people enjoying the sights and sounds of the country life in the Mountain State. 4-H is stepping up their involvement with the fair this year. We now have a council circle on the grounds and we will be having camp fire activities three times a day during the run of the fair.

The Youth Building is also open and we have the second largest number of exhibits ever. We have 3,670 exhibits from 50 of our 55 counties. We have taken digital pictures of all the posters and it is easier to read the posters and all the great information they have. We are open everyday from 10:00 in the morning until 9:00 at night, so if you are traveling to the fair, stop in the Cecil Underwood Youth Building for a great 4-H fix. The projects are varied and we have selected 12 Best of Show exhibits. We have folks from the Greenbrier County 911 with us along with Greenbrier Communications. Germ City is helping teach folks the correct way to wash their hands and as always it is a very popular attraction

We will be adding the Mobile Technology Lab by tomorrow morning and this will give us 11 computers in the building where folks can read email, look up items on the internet and play games.

We are enjoying the beginning of the new fair and our thanks go out to all the folks that were a part of the Department O team and the agents and volunteers around the state that delivered exhibits to us.

State camp planning begins tonight, August 8 and OMC will be working tonight and tomorrow with our Alpha planning coming in on Saturday and out on Sunday. Hopefully many great ideas will come about for State Camps for the summer of 2009.

Hey everyone! It’s Meredith. I hope everyone has been enjoying reading all the blogs people have written about their incredible 4-H experiences. Sadly summer is quickly coming to an end, but I’m writing today to tell you all a little about one more of our state 4-H camps, Alpha II.

Alpha II is held at Jackson’s Mill in Lewis County and is for 4-Hers going into 5th grade up to the age of 21. The theme of Alpha this year was medieval so every day was planned to fit to the theme and our song even talked about ruling the kingdom.

There are many traditions that are unique to Alpha that are the highlight of many people’s week there. One of these activities is LEOs. LEOs stand for Leisure Educational Opportunities. They are your chance to choose from a long list of activities that fit every kind of personality. In other words, those of you who love sports can show your skills on the field, on the court, or in the sand. Those of you creative crafty styles can create anything you set your mind to. We are lucky enough to have a creativity lab a.k.a. “craft heaven”. You can find almost anything in order to make anything from a cute ankle bracelet to a tie dye t-shirt.

Another favorite of Alpha II are “grow groups.” At the beginning of the week, they separate the entire camp into all the different age groups and then those groups split into even smaller groups of about 10 to 15 people. You spend a good amount of your time with this group, learning about each other, playing games, and having discussion. This is a great place to make lifelong friends and also many peoples’ motivation to come back to camp year, for those few special people in their grow groups. I mean who else is going to understand you or relate to you any better than boys and girls your own age? You are going through the same times and you simply just get each other.

Alpha II is a chance to discover who you are, to step outside of your comfort zone, and live your life. Don’t ever pass up a chance to be you. I encourage all of you who do go to camp to keep coming back until you age out and then send in your information to be on staff. Those of you who are yet to experience 4-H camp, it’s never too late. Send in your registration next summer and I’ll see you there. I promise it will be the best week of your life.

Catching fireflies, biking, and making semores-I know it sounds like I have drifted back to my childhood. The truth is last week, five Canandians from Alberta spent the week in Morgantown, WV with our family and two other 4-H families and so we spent some time catching fireflies, biking and eating the usually forbidden semores. Nine exchange students and two chaperones arrived from Canada last Monday. On their first night here, they discovered fireflies and finally they said that they understood the Huck Finn concept of the glowing jar with a stick.

We had such fun with these folks from up North exploring our town and state. Five of them stayed in Morgantown for the week and six visited in Morgan, Roane, Preston and Doddridge counties. This is all part of an exchange that was suppose to be somewhere else for both groups. The West Virginia 4-H’ers were planning to go to Russia and the Canadians had planned a trip to Quebec but there were complications with both of those plans so Gayle Plante, one of the Canadian chaperones and a 4-H leader searched on the Internet and read about Jeff Orndorff (aka-my husband) who had taken 4-H’ers on exchanges before to Russia and other states. In the meantime, Meredith(our daughter), had attended National 4-H Conference in Washington, DC in April and had met some other Canadian students. When she came home, she shared how much she loved the Canadians with their spontaneity and enthusiasm. So when Jeff got the call and he mentioned it to Meredith, she really gave her Dad a push. Even though he already had a very tight schedule with his Extension job of running 3 state camps, Operation Military kids and the State Fair, the exchange was a go. So what has happened?

Meredith was right…what a great group of people and we are so lucky they are a neighboring country! We have shared ideas, recipes, games and revisited our state and neighboring states. Some activities included touring Blackwater Falls, Cooper’s Rock, downtown Morgantown, biking at Ohiopyle; swimming in 2 friend’s pools, a round of golf, playing spoons, listening to their own Garth Brooks sing and play guitar,-Ian Brousseau, and laughing almost all of the time.

What have we discovered? We are more alike than different and the differences make life much more interesting. One of the kids told a story, that we call a knitted winter cap a tobaggan, while of course a tobaggan to the Canadians is a special sled. There weren’t too many words that we didn’t understand but we liked they way that they said, “Ay” at the end of many sentences. It sure beats, “Huh.”

The Canadians, this week are Alpha II at Jackson’s Mill. When I returned home from camp last night (some of us must go to real work), my house was too quiet.

Gail Plante and Shelley Tymofichuk, the chaperones from Canada are the Big Foot’s tribe, Chief and Sag this week. If you are a 4-H’er you know that unlike the regular tribes, the honor of being Chief and Sag in the Big Foot tribe always goes to the newest adults in camp because they will definitely have the most fun with it. I heard that they have something very special planned for tonight’s Council Circle.

So next year, the West Virginian’s will travel to Alberta to visit for about 10 days. I’m sure they will learn even more. If you are interested in 4-H, contact your local Extension Service in your county and if you are interested in learning more about 4-H exchanges and need advice, write to Jeffrey Orndorff

The Canadians particpating are: Ian Brousseau, Clayton Poulin, Marc Lamontague, Gabrile Corbiere, Darren Tymofichuk, Laura Plante, Amanda Meger, Martine Chamberland, Jennifer Brousseau and chaperones Gail Plante and Shelley Tymofichuk.

Hosts and their families included:
Doddridge County – Chelsea Welch and family ,Mandy Yeater and Shane Yeater and family
Monongalia County – Ashley Sydney Lavengood, Sydney Lavengood and parents Mike and Sheri Lavengood; Meredith Orndorff, Joel Orndorrff and parents Jeff and Cathy Orndorff; and chaperone, Connie Williams
Morgan County – Ronald Fifield and family
Preston County – Charles Brown and family
Roane County – Kati Hildreth and family

How, how-to a super bunch of folks from up North!.

It is not too late to attend Alpha I or II. Alpha 1 begins on Sunday, July 6, 2008 and registration is from 2 -4 p.m. Alpha II begins on Sunday, July 13 and again registration is from 2-4 p.m. At this point the state scholarship is no longer available, but we will provide anyone registering now to get a $40.00 staff scholarship provided by our Alpha staff members. Alpha I numbers are up and Alpha II is about the same size as last year, so we are looking for two wonderful weeks. If you would like to attend I or II, the easiest way to do this is to register online at the following address:

http://www.peopleware.net/2633a

This will allow you to pay via credit card or to make payment when you arrive. You will be able to get the $40.00 scholarship even if you walk in on Sunday. Letting us know in advance makes your trip through the registration process faster, so get to your computer and sign up. Remember to bring your own towels, but Jackson’s Mill has linens. You might want to bring a light blanket if it remains cool. Oh, btw the theme is “The Kingdom of Alpha-A Noble Journey.” It’s a medieval theme-in case you don’t recognize the word-it was the time around the middle ages. See you at camp!

Hey, it’s Meredith again. My last blog was all about Older Members Conference which was a blast and if you didn’t read it you should take a minute to learn all about the wonderful camp that it is! After camp, I headed to the beach with my family for a few days then I flew from Myrtle Beach to Little Rock, Arkansas. I bet you’re wondering what in the world I was planning on doing in Little Rock but it was actually yet another 4-H opportunity.

I was headed to the Arkansas 4-H center where I attended a conference on a program called “Health Rocks” which teaches children about the dangers of tobacco, alcohol, and drug use. The conference was called “Health Rocks! Train the Trainer Institute.” They implement the program by teaching the lessons to teenagers so that the teens can teach the lessons to the children. This is because we understand that a child is very likely to listen to the teen that they look up to.

We arrived Friday and learned all about the program’s goals and what we were going to do during the weekend. Then we played a lot of get-to-know-you games to help us feel more comfortable with all the teams we would be working with.

On Saturday, we learned many different lessons from the books they gave us and even got to practice teaching the lessons to a group.We only had about a half hour to put together an entire lesson and address it to a certain audience. This was a challenge but my team pulled together and we received very good feedback about our teaching skills.

On Sunday, we received certificates that prove that we have completed the “Health Rocks” program and are ready to teach the information. In order to complete the children to complete the program, they must receive ten hours of actual instruction.
Ashley Lavengood and BeccaFint-Clark, Monongalia County’s 4-H Extension Agent, were the other people on my team. I want to thank Becca for giving me this opportunity since I am very interested in health topics. We plan to teach other teenagers in our community, from the 4-H Teen Leaders and possibly students at MHS from the National Honor Society. These students already work with the Boys and Girls Club which is the organization we were thinking of targeting.

There were people from many different states such as: New York, Utah, Ohio, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Texas, Idaho, Louisiana, Kentucky, Michigan, South Carolina, North Carolina, and of course West Virginia. It
was great getting to know the people from the other states and learn a little bit about their 4-H programs. When you go to a National 4-H event, you really get an idea of how different 4-H programs are when you go from state to state.

Another interesting thing I noticed about this weekend is that the problems we face day to day vary so much by the places that we live. Yet many children are being influenced in the wrong way and we can change that if we just take that extra step. 4-H itself is a wonderful organization to keep kid’s away from many dangers in life, but the Health Rocks Program is associated with 4-H and teaches young children specifically about the dangers of drug use. This is an issue that many children are not educated about and they need to be.

If you would like any more information go to the Health Rocks website to see more about the program , contact the Monongalia County Extension Office at 304-291-7201 to see how to get involved, or contact me through email Meredith.o32@gmail.com or try Facebook. Also, if you have an organization such as the Boys and Girls Club or an afterschool group of kids that you think could use this information in their lives, let me know. We plan on educating as many people as we can about the dangers of these awful drugs and just about staying healthy to make their lives the best that they can be.

P.S. At National 4-H Conference this year I learned about an organization called “Nothing But Nets,” which is a grassroots campaign to prevent malaria in Africa. This organization sends bed nets over for $10 a piece and a family of four can sleep under them. This will protect them from the mosquitoes, so also from malaria. At OMC I told the campers a little bit about the program and that I was raising money for the campaign. I held a lemonade stand where the lemonade was free and people could give donations. I came out of camp with a little over $200, which means that we are buying 20 nets. Yipeeee! Twenty nets covers around 80 to 100 people directly and then the more nets there are in a community, the insecticide that the nets have sewn into them will spread and keep the mosquitoes out of the area, so thus we might be saving even more lives.

I appreciate all of you that donated, it means so much. If you would like anymore information on this campaign or malaria in general, their website is http://nothingbutnets.net/ . All the information is there and it’s
something that you as a teenager, 4-H club, or adult can do easily. Ten dollars is something that most everyone could afford to donate or to raise if you give up 10 cans of soda, a movie theater trip or a new shirt. Thank you again, and the more donations I get I will keep posted so you know the success of OMC 4-H Camp 2008. Helping others is a great feeling!

If anyone has any questions about camp or 4-H or anything, my e-mail is
Meredith.o32@gmail.com and I’m also on Facebook, and would be more than
willing to help you out!.

Hey everyone, it’s Meredith. So I haven’t had much of a chance to write because my summer has been so busy. First I was at Monongalia County 4-H camp which was so much fun! My brother was chief of the Mingo tribe which I’m a part of and he also won the Head H so that was very exciting. Then I came home Friday night, washed my clothes on Saturday and was headed to
Jackson’s Mill on Sunday for Older Members Conference.

OMC is by far my most favorite week of the year and I was so excited to be back. This year there weren’t nearly as many people as normal, mostly due to high gas prices and the economy-may teens must work to help their families out. Even though we were missing so many people, everyone still had the same amount of spirit and enthusiasm about camp!

The theme at camp was “Carpe Confusio,” meaning confusion was our theme. We would spin a wheel to determine the schedule and theme for the day. I think it was hard on the counselors but the campers liked it. It was interesting because you could go in any direction with that theme. We started camp off welcoming in the “Outspoken for 4-H” bike riders who
traveled on their bikes all through the mountains of the state finally reaching Jackson’s Mill. This year many more people took part in the bike ride and they seemed like they had a LOT of fun. Then we continued that night with “The Journey,” the new ceremony replacing High Council and then we all headed off to our cottages to get a good night’s sleep for the week ahead.

Also another wonderful thing that happened for me was that my brother was voted sagamore for our tribe meaning he will be chief next year! My Dad had this same experience 39 years ago, so it is full circle once again for our family in their 4-H experiences and a tender moment for my Dad.

At OMC, we have a speaker each day who talks about an issue then we separate into small groups to talk about our opinions and later we meet back together as a whole camp to have open discussion about the day’s topic. This year we
had very good speakers who addressed many issues we face everyday. The first speaker spoke about the “Access 4-H Program,” which was really cool because it is going to be a website for all 4-Hers nationwide to keep in contact with
each other. Also you can keep track of your community service hours and many other neat things. It should be coming out sometime later this year, so keep an eye out!

Another speaker we had addressed the topic of sexual ethics which is a very popular topic when you are speaking to a bunch of teenagers. So the discussion that day was pretty interesting. She was an Assistant Professor
at West Virginia University and even talked about some of the classes she teaches at WVU.

Another exciting thing that happened was All Star Consecration where many young 4-Hers were awarded with the highest honor in 4-H, their All-Star Pin, for their years of service and dedication to their 4-H life and making the
best better.

On Wednesday, every camper signed up for a certain community service activity and we spent the afternoon cleaning up the place we love, Jackson’s Mill. The jobs varied from mulching gardens to painting the old council circle to picking up trash. Just a few hours of service helps us to be proud of the camp and give back for all the great memories it has given us. Also when you come back the next year, you get to see that what you did really did make a difference to help the camp look its best, which is definitely a
great feeling.

On Thursday, Marlon LeBlanc the Men’s Soccer Coach at WVU, came to speak about diversity and how WVU is starting a program called “One WVU.” This program will help to teach students to accept people that are different from them in anyway and make the school a whole, “One WVU.” I think this is great program and some 4-Hers even volunteered to help make another commercial
for their program so the news can be spread even more. The informal banquet was also Thursday night, which is always a lot of fun. Everyone puts on their best outfit, we have a very delicious dinner, and the award winners from last year give the camp a few words to hold on to. Then the party happens! We all go to the Assembly Hall and dance the night away!

On Friday, the speaker was actually multiple people. It was a few groups of campers who spoke on different topics such as what we can do to “go green” and recycling. With the shape that our environment is in these days, I think it’s very important that our generation learns about the little things we can do to make a difference. Friday night was our last Council Circle but it was by far one of the best I’ve ever been to.

OMC is a wonderful camp and I encourage all of you that have never had a chance to go, come next year.
Those of you that were there this year, come back. Then those of you that used to come, come back as a staff member. Camp is something that will be fun no matter how old you are and 4-H is a lifetime experience. If you are a
4-Her now, you will be forever! =]

This Wednesday here at OMC the entire camp participated in a service project to Jackson’s Mill. To be honest, before this year I have always taken the easy way out of service projects here at camp. I always do something, that while it?s helpful, it doesn?t involve a whole lot of effort. This year I changed my mind and decided to get down and dirty. I signed up for weeding, mulching, and grooming the flower beds in front of the Administration building. For those of you who have been to the Mill before you know that the flower beds I am speaking of outline almost the entire outside of this building. I didn?t know exactly what I was getting myself into. We arrived a little after one this afternoon ready to work. I learned to use certain tools to help me remove weeds from the flower bed and how to spread mulch over an area. We worked, and by we I mean about seven of us, until four o?clock this afternoon. While I walked away from this project with more aches and pains than ever, I had the best feeling in my heart. It made me proud that I put all of my time and effort into beautifying this area. I love Jackson’s Mill for all the wonderful things it?s done for me and I feel the need to help it and it?s staff in return. This is why we do community service, not for what we gain from it, but what others gain from our passion and drive to do something for them. Although, that warm, fuzzy, good feeling inside helps too. I got to work first hand with the director?s wife today, who is in charge of all the landscaping here at The Mill, and she taught me a lot. So, I just want to give a hand to all the Mill staff for everything they do! My life would not be the same without this camp. Also, to my group that worked so hard today, HOW HOW!! My fellow 4-Hers truly inspire me everyday with their hard work, enthusiasm, and leadership.

Always,
Caroline