Former 4-H campers pay it forward

If you ever had a time that you wanted to have a dream of some way that you can go and be yourself, someway that you feel like you've never fit in 4-H camp is the place to be. I always tell our teens and adults, we never know what type of background our kids are coming from. We have kids from single parent households. We have kids that are being raised by grandparents. We have kids in foster care. And a lot of these kids, this is the only vacation that they will get. And so we want to make it the best impactful, happiest time of their life. I mean, I heard a kid the other day. I'm just glad to be able to sleep in a bed because I don't have one at home. You know, it just pulls at your heart. Almost 90% of our adult volunteers now have come through the 4-H program, and they actually, they volunteer to come back because they want these kids to have the same impact that was delivered to them when they were that age. 4-H! I think when I got here, I was like a lot of kids. I'd never been in a camp setting before. You know, for me, seeing those staff members as a kid, that's what led me to become a teen counselor to then become a staff member, to stay on as an adult. You know, really motivated me to keep going. So coming to 4-H camp, you get to experience so many different things that you would never experience at home. Friends become family. So when I dance, I try to instill in the children that it's all about confidence. If you feel like you got it, amazing. Even if you're wrong, if you're confident, it's 100% okay, because once you feel confident, the other girls around you, or guys feel just as confident as you do. It's a lot of them that, you know, come here that, you know, may not have that confidence that self esteem, and I wish that they would take away, you know, let's build that self esteem. Let's build that confidence to make them into a great, great person and adult. So I have gone since I was in fourth grade, and now I'm an adult volunteer. I hope they're able to make friends and also be able to do things they wouldn't be able to do otherwise. For example, there is a camper here this week that was in my class last year in third grade, and I know the home life he comes from. So he's able to come to camp and do things that he would have never been able to do without the help of 4-H. So something I started about five years ago, a lot of our volunteers live out of the area. And I said, look, we have a lot of kids that we offer scholarships to. So I challenge you to ask your company to sponsor a kid or two to attend camp. I mean, it may not be all the financially, but in gifts and donations and items and time, all the volunteers, 100% return on making sure that these kids have a successful camp.