While Friday was going to be a sad day, I was looking forward to this final week in the office with very busy days.
Monday, Carol and I spent the day without Jana making flyers for the fair and getting all the last minute needs for Tuesday night's event. We also did not have Teresa this week so the hectic Monday office was crazier than usual - phones and walk-ins. Jana was back on Tuesday - YAY! We spent the morning off to prepare for the Youth for the Quality Care of Animals workshop that evening. It was a hot but successful evening with over 110 participants! There was set-up, take down, checking people in, and serving pizza. It was informative for not only the participants but also me. This is one of the exhibitors' requirements for being able to show. Wednesday was also busy with various office tasks. Carol also proposed the idea of having winter day camps.. in-person! I got to planning and am so excited to come back over winter break to finish planning and help run the camps! We went out to a goodbye lunch with Carol on Thursday. Jana and I also went on a goodbye lunch on Friday as one last outing. I will truly miss both of them as well as Teresa and Bobby. This experience has been so much more than I could have even imagined. As I begin my final year of undergrad, I am going in so refreshed and happy from what this summer has been. Thank you to Jana for being my mentee, doing anything (no matter how much singing or dancing was involved), and being such a supportive, loving human being. This summer would have been so weird without you. Finally, thank you to Carol. I am so glad that our relationship has had so many changes over my (literal) lifespan. From my extension agent to my supervisor - I cannot imagine life without a role model like you. Here's to the awesome summer we had and to so many more 4-H memories to come!
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Week two of our day camps in a box went off without a hitch!
Unfortunately, this week we did not have any participants in our Zoom calls but I am sure the campers were having lots of fun! On Monday, we were able to see off the Exchange Club as they left for their week-long Virginia adventure. Typically this group pairs with a group of similar size from another state. They then spend one week in that state one summer and then they come spend the next week in Virginia. Due to COVID, this normal exchange did not occur. They spent so much time fundraising so they took time to go to Virginia Beach, Busch Gardens, and other stops along the way. I did exchange while in 4-H and am so glad to see it continuing! Most of the day on Tuesday was spent doing around the office jobs. Such as preparing all the materials for the livestock meeting later that night and creating the Livestock Show and Sale Evaluation form. I got to attend the Livestock Executive Committee meeting that night. It was focused on a lot of the details with the fair week approaching quickly. I learned that the sale order of animals matter (people may run out of funds or hit limits before certain species come up for sale) and that the curtains have been blue very few times (they are typically green). Wednesday and Thursday were also hectic days filled with show and sale tasks. The youth reps for the committee came in on Wednesday to do the stall assignments for the animals as well as assigning all the buyers to exhibitors. Jana and I helped specifically with the buyers list. This was a tedious process with many names, addresses, and other information pertinent to the assignments. After three hours of sorting, a pizza break, and many pencils - the list was completed. The next day, Jana and I got to type all of the hand written names into an excel sheet to make it more accessible for the exhibitors. Friday, Jana was gone and I spent time learning to use our brand new copier. WOO HOO! It is shorter than the old one and even has its own cleaning rag for the touch screen. Not to mention that it is so much quieter, which is a great when you're next to it but not when you're at your desk and can't hear whether its printing or not. Next week is our last week at the office... :( This is the first week of two that we have been preparing most of the summer for!
Monday started out a bit hectic but we gave out almost all the boxes! We rocked our camp shirts and got to even meet some of the campers as they came in with their parents. Each box has everything each camper should need for their next three days of fun!! Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday were the days that we hosted morning Zoom call. Each day we averaged about 4 or 5 kids on the call. We did a scavenger hunt, sang songs, guessed which Disney movie was our background, and answered any questions about the activities happening that day. The kids seemed to really enjoy everything we planned! Wednesday, we took more time to go shopping and get whatever else was needed for our Day Camp the following week. Such as 25 more flours than the 25 we had purchased for the Cloverbud Camp. This allowed us to fully prepare on Thursday to pack the boxes on Friday. I also spent time this week editing, printing, and alphbetizing the "Bred and Owned" posters for the Fair. This is a recognition posted at any exhibitor's pen who has raised the show animal from birth - how cool right? It was awesome to see just how many animals and exhibitors there were that did this. We also spent a lot of time asking for 2 Liter bottles for next week's Day Camp. The entire building made donations including the landfill. We also got many bottles from Tressie - our favorite 4-H Adult and ice cream provider. It is so hard to believe that there are only TWO weeks left before I am done here for the summer. While I am excited for school - I will miss being here a lot! This week started with the day off on Monday for the 4th of July weekend! It was nice to have a day to rest before a busy week of Day Camp preparations.
The beginning of the week, I spent time sending out confirmation emails to parents, scholarship application requests, and communicating with parents about the Day Camp program. We also got to send Jana's shirt designs off to Cabin Hill T's! I cannot wait to see the final products soon. Wednesday was the BIG shopping day. Anything that was not ordered off of Amazon was then purchased at Costco, Walmart, and Dollar Tree. On this day, we went to Walmart then Dollar Tree. We had two very, very full carts at Walmart - so much that we had to do two different check out transactions. Dollar Tree was also an entirely full cart. This was shopping for not just Cloverbud Day Camp but also the regular Day Camp. A reward for all this hard work was a stop at TNK Custard, owned by Tressie - who is Lindsey Rigby's mom! The next day, Jana was gone with Mark Sutphin in Frederick checking out the spotted lanternflys. I was so excited for her to have this experience like I did last summer! I spent that day getting the meeting room lined up to put together the Cloverbud Day Camp in a Box boxes. This was a lot of work to set-up but made the process of putting them together so much easier. Friday until about 1, almost 2, I was the only person in the office. I did not get any visitors or phone calls until after I took lunch from 12 to 12:30. I spent a lot of time preparing materials for the Day Camp packets, printing and folding brochures (which was quite the process), and sending email reminders to all the camper's parents. When Jana came back on Friday, she brought Karen Poff with her. Karen is an agent that serves Family and Consumer Science needs in our planning district. She came to the office to conduct pressure tests on canning lids. - check out my photos section! This was so neat to learn about and get to try doing! I was able to test both of the lids and confirmed what Karen found. Next week kicks off our Cloverbud Day Camp in a Box program! I cannot wait to see all the campers!! I was out of the office most of this week taking some personal and vacation time - a trip to Hershey Park with my dad and then a trip to the lake with my family.
The day and a half I spent in the office were busy preparing and shopping for our Day Camp in a Box programs. I also spent a lot of time sending out the information about the camps to be promoted in the newspapers, libraries, and other places. I was also able to attend the 4-H/FFA Livestock Show and Sale Executive Committee meeting. I attended a few of these last summer so it was neat to be back and see everyone again! This week we also said goodbye to Teri, one of our secretaries, as she moves onto another chapter of her life. She will be missed! Not much else to share this week but be on the lookout for all the awesome things coming up! It felt great to be back in the office after a week away! This week was mostly different jobs around the office and preparation for our upcoming Day Camp in a Box program.
First, we spent some time working on the exhibitor cards for the Shenandoah County Livestock Show and Sale. We handwrote each name, breed, and club for each child showing. This task involved many sharpies, the use of the recycling bin, and music to keep us going. We then organized them all alphabetically by name and sorted them by breed. A few days were also days for Walmart and Dominos trips to pick-up supplies for our Day Camp in a Box Program. We also spent time printing, folding, stuffing, and sealing the donor letters for the Show and Sale. The weekend arrived and it was time to head back to the 4-H Center for 4-H Congress Across the Commonwealth - Separated by miles, together at heart. Cheyenne Estep was running for a District Ambassador position and Chad Biby attended after competing virtually for Extemporaneous Speaking. Cheyenne received a position as well as a blue ribbon in Public Speaking, Chad received a white ribbon, and Lindsey Rigby (whose farm we visited earlier in the summer) got tapped as an All Star and won the state Table Setting competition. The participants were also able to attend workshops, be served an etiquette lunch, and mingle with other 4-Hers in our Northern District. The weekend ended with a campfire led by all our favorite Perm Staffers from camp. It was truly an awesome weekend. Now it's time for Day Camp in a Box!!! There are no words for how awesome it was to return to camp! We pulled up on Sunday and in some ways it felt as though I had never left. This camp week hosts four counties - Culpeper, Shenandoah, Rappahannock, and Spotsylvania (CSRS).
Jana and I spent a lot of time planning our class - "Christmas in June" and it was a huge success! Each camper was able to do as many and whichever crafts they wanted to. We had SO many of them that got creative. Check out the photos to see what all they made! We also spent time with evening activities (talent show, the dating game, a dance, and a swim party), meals, downtime with teens and campers, pack meetings, and so much more. It was hard to believe how fast the week actually went by. Each camper was truly awesome to be around and get to know over the week. It was very interesting to play a role of adult volunteer and not teen. Part of it was being able to drive around whereas the other part was helping teens with campers who wouldn't listen or follow instruction. My favorite part of the week though was being in the beloved campfire circle. Campfire is one of the special traditions that camp has always held. My mom was once a teen counselor and also attended her campfires in that circle. The songs, presentations, and elbow rubbing (because its good medicine) is what makes the entire experience. While I am excited for the rest of the summer, I am sad that I once again had to leave camp! Whew! What a week this was and boy is this summer flying by!
On Monday, Jana and I started the week by attending the Real Money, Real World simulation at Robert E. Aylor Middle School. The goal of this simulation was to teach the 7th graders how money is practically - or not - spent in the real world. Each student was given a profession and child (number and ages) with an assumption that they all had spouses. They had to travel to every booth which included things like vehicles (used or new), housing (rent or buy), groceries, entertainment, and many other necessary functions of real life. There was even a booth with financial assistance if advice, a second job, or state aid was needed. I was able to assist at the Housing and Groceries booths. The Housing was typical and most did not complain. However, at the Groceries they had to not only pay for them and their spouse but also per child. It was very expensive to feed a family of 5 and you had to do it! It was so cool to watch and there are actually ways it can be applicable for 3rd graders as well as 11th graders. On Wednesday, we were able to go out to Emily Bowman's farm and see what all she has there. With a bit of a detour (I am not great with directions), we arrived at their barn just in time to see many of their daily family farm functions. For example, there is a pig who has been coughing so we got to see them give injections. Jana was also able to learn how a pig is shown with a show stick. She had fear in her heart of hurting the pig but she didn't and learned an awesome lesson! We also got to meet their newest pigs - made by artificial insemination! They were about 3 to 4 months old and loved to chew on our boots!! The rest of our time this week was spent preparing for overnight camp. We prepared for our class Christmas in June, I prepared the teen break organization, packed up what would be needed, and then we prepared all the master lists. This was the largest task of the week by far. We had to prepare folders for each agent, adult volunteer, lead teen, perm staffer, and great bear. Many, many sheets of paper and just a few paper cuts later we finished the second to last task of overnight camp. The final task was folding each program and placing labels with each participants name, class schedule, pack, and home county. I am SO excited to be returning to camp and cannot wait to see what the week will hold being an adult volunteer! This week was a three day week for me rather than a full five days. We, as an office, had Monday off and then Friday I headed to the beach with my mom! It was still a busy week with lots of fun activities and planning for the rest of the summer.
First, we were able to attend a visit to Lindsey Rigby's farm to see her sheep and goats. She wakes up each day at 5:30 am to beginning feeding and walking for the day. She says they can walk up to a mile per day, per animal. The amount of time and the level of energy Lindsey displays each day for her animals is commendable. It is so neat to be interacting in person with 4-H members again! Then, I got to finish all the ordering lists for our Day Camps that will be held in June. Jana helped tremendously by figuring out which activities, crafts, and snacks would be best for each camp. Next week we will start advertising for these camps and begin the sign ups! Each camp will be so much fun and I cannot wait to see the kids over Zoom again this summer! Finally, the rest of our time was spent preparing for the upcoming Overnight Camp at the Northern Virginia 4-H Educational Center. We completed the planning of our "Christmas in June" class and made an example of each craft. On Thursday we actually got to head over to the Center to have lunch, meet the perm staffers, and do some tie dye. It was so awesome to see some of the perm staffers were actually teens when I was a teen at camp! It felt so serene and peaceful to be back at a place where all my memories are good ones. I am so looking forward to two weeks from now when we actually get to be there with campers! I was so excited to get a warm welcome back to the office this week as the 4-H Program Assistant! This year I am joined by Jana Bowman who is serving in the position I held last summer. She is such as positive and happy person that I cannot wait to spend more of the summer with. It was nice to be back with the entire office staff and get reminders of how to forward calls and how to make copies!
This week we got started on a few different projects and worked with multiple parts of the extension office. First, we will be leading a class called "Christmas in June" at overnight camp. We started by planning out crafts and then created instruction sheets for each. Jana and I both made crafts as examples as well as preparing all the items we will need to take with us. A quick Walmart trip and Amazon order later we will have all the supplies ready! We also were able to attend not only a CIT/Teen Training but also a camp planning meeting with the NOVA 4-H Center. Next, we got started on planning this year's "Day Camp in a Box" programs. This summer we will be hosting two in July for ages 5 to 8 then ages 9 to 12. We chose themes (Under the Sea and Outer Space), created the promotional posters, and started to organize the activities that will fill the schedule. I cannot wait to get these events underway in July!! Finally, we spent Friday organizing the tags for the 4-H and FFA Show and Sale in August. With helping of the 4-H/FFA Livestock Show and Sale Executive Committee youth representatives, we were able to sort the swine, lamb, and goat tags in no time at all! Jana and I then spent lots of time talking to the youth representatives about the show and sale, their animals, and the entire process from purchase to sale. I never showed and although I learned some last summer, I learn even more each time I speak with members! I am thoroughly looking forward to this summer and all the things I will get to do - including some farm visits next week!! Look in my photos section to see all the fun things we've been up to! |