Responsibility and money management, that’s what Hernandez mother Mariaelena Jaramillo said she hoped her son would learn through buying, raising and selling a hog at the Rio Arriba County Fair this weekend.
One would assume that is what all mothers hope for their children but that’s not going to happen in public school. Additionally, some parents lack the skills themselves, so it’s impossible to pass on to their children. Spending time in 4-H can fix that.
Projects youth take on in 4-H come with many perks that members receive as they work, without even realizing it. When a leader puts three children together on a team because they all like bugs, magic happens. Each brings a skill, knowledge or experience the others won’t have.
They’re all excited about bugs so they’ll engage more deeply and share the knowledge and enthusiasm. Early in our human resource career we learned you can’t teach enthusiasm, but you can hire for it. When someone loves what they’re doing they do a better job.
As Rio Grande SUN writers spoke to youth for the profiles on page B1, that energy was clearly evident. And you have to admit who’s getting up at 5 a.m. to water livestock unless they love doing it?
One of the key facets we’ve always liked about 4-H is the money aspect. Usually when starting a large project, such as raising an animal, 4-H youth must borrow the money from a relative to buy an animal. There are immediate expenses. Lambs must eat, they require a veterinarian check. Those are more expenses.
So it’s not just about an animal being dependent upon a young person for its care and feeding. It’s also about the 4-H member learning how to budget, track costs, shop for feed and pay the bills. Hopefully, on auction night the person raising the animal will sell it and make enough to recoup his or her costs and possibly bank some money to buy next year’s project.
If they don’t recover their costs, there’s a valuable lesson there too.
Outside of the large animal projects the cooking, etymology, photography, sewing and other projects have great lessons for youth to learn. Patience, learning from mistakes and working harder to get better come to mind. There may very well be future bakers, master chefs, photographers and clothes designers waiting to burst out and chart their own course in life. They have a solid 4-H background upon which to build.
Please support the hard work of many of our local youth and attend the Rio Arriba County Fair this weekend. It’s great if you can buy something but your attendance is support also. The details, calendar of events and their times are on the Fair’s website www.racfa.net. Highlights of the weekend are at the end of the Fair story on page A1.