MSU Extension 4-H Volunteering & Mentoring

All right. I'd like to welcome everyone to today's Michigan Four HH volunteer webinar on the places Four HH can take you. I'm Christine Havery. I use the pronoun she Her Hers. I'm an extension educator and the MSU extension Co ead for Volunteer Management, and I'm based in the Clinton County Office. And I have Janelle with me. I'll let her do a quick introduction. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm le Stewart, and I am located in Lena White County at the bottom of the state, and I have an extension educator with the leadership Civic cultural engagement work team, as well as a program coordinator in our county. We're so excited for you all to be part of this webinar show with us. We will share a few links in the chat, but no, we send a follow up e mail that includes all the links and the PDF version of the PowerPoints. You can go back and reference pieces later to anyone, and then you'll also be able to go back and reference the recording if you want. So two extension fully believes in the principles of diversity equity inclusion. We know that human differences enrich our lives, and we embrace our responsibility to be a resource for in providing programs to all segments of the community. It also is important to understand the longstanding history and legacy of colonialism that has brought us to reside in the land and seek and understanding our place within that history. The land acknowledgment on the screen is one step in that process. I'm going to put a quick demographic link in the chat. If you wouldn't mind completing that, that helps us show how we're meeting the different needs across the state of Michigan and the different demographics that are within Michigan. So we just ask if you're able to complete that, please do. If you are attending this, and you are an MSU extension employee doing this as an MSU extension employee, we ask you don't complete it, but if you're doing it in your volunteer role, as an MSU extension employee, feel free to complete This is part of a webinar series that we have been doing for the last year and a half, and we have a few more coming up this year, one on November 6 that will look at how volunteers can spark big dreams and future careers, so helping ideas of how you can do some career development pieces within your four H club experiences. And then we have one at the end of November on building strong relationships through every stages and looks at the ages and stages of youth development. All the recordings are available for all the past topics that have been done. And then we will be looking to start. I'm currently working on setting our topics and dates for spring and winter of 2025, and those will be released on the website in mid late November, probably or early December. And anyone who's attending the past will get an e mail that kind of shares what those are, so you can attend if you're interested. So we hope to see you at future ones after this one. To help us get started to stay on the topic we are looking at today of the places that FH can take you. We want to get started with. A quick little ice breaker is, where is a place FH has taken you as a volunteer alumni, a member or a parent. Think back on whatever kind of forage experiences you have, and where has Forge taken you? I want everyone to tick for a moment and type your response in the chat, but don't press go because I'm going to do this as a waterfall chat. So you want to type in. Where is some place FH has taken you? It could have been if you were a Fa member, as an alumni of F as a member as a parent, as a volunteer. So really think about where is that, and I'll give everyone a minute to think on that. Washington, DC, I would say FH also took me to DC, another one DC. It is taking me to get to know people better in my community. My current career, Yes, so it's taking you to become a leader. Helping meet people in a new community has taken me to campus multiple times. Yes. For those in the UP, sometimes it does allow that opportunity to get to campus, making new friends in a new community. Yes. So the places that Forage takes you as a leader are really great opportunities. I could have taken you as a leader or as a as a member or as even a parent of a forager. It takes you places, and it's really awesome for us to also think about. FH has so many opportunities to take use different places. That's what we're going to focus on is some of those places that FH can take the use within our programs. Then as a leader, how you can promote those or get youth excited about those throughout the their fog experiences. In FH, we get the opportunity to work with youth in many non formal settings. These faces provide you the place to belong, matter and explore their personal spark. The relationships that youth have with each of you as FourH volunteers helps with that skill development, engagement, belonging, and make forage programs impactful. In FH, we but to build that spark, find what they're interested in, that passion. We want to make them feel below, that they have a belonging, we want to form strong relationships, and we want to give them engagement. And as we look at the paths that Forage can take us, we have to have these things to get them on the pathways to explore some of the state national and international opportunities that Forage offers for youth. We won't know what to share with you if we don't have that spark or have built that relationship with them. As we think about that whole spark piece, it is that thing that gets you going. It's that intrinsic thing that lets that light bulb go up. We know what a Sparka youth has or what gets them going, it helps us better think about what are some of those international opportunities state and national international opportunities that might work well for them. What can I share with them? What kind of things do I want to bring? Where do I want to help take them through their four H experiences? It's good to as we get to know the youth in our four H clubs and or programs or events is, what gets them going? Where do I see that light ball off? Take a moment to look at that and reflect on that as you are working with all of them. Now we're going to start talking about some of the places that for each can take us. Again, good afternoon, everyone, and I'm going to kick it off with a local or a state experience. What we are going to focus on here today, we're going to look at our state opportunities, our national opportunities, and then our international opportunities. We've also designed this for it to be somewhat in chronological order of how things happen across the state with us. In March every year, we have a statewide program called F H Capital Experience. Now, remember when I say the dates of these events or the approximate dates, the registration usually begins anywhere 2-3 months prior to these dates. We will open up capital experience registration anywhere between December and January in order for young people to have to register for this event. This event occurs in downtown Lansing. We're there for three days. We ask the kids get out of school on a Monday and Tuesday, they arrive on Sunday and they're there Monday through Tuesday. During their experience there, we put them through what we call a mock simulation of our state government, not our federal government, of our state government. They get tours of the Capitol, they also get tours of the Hall of Justice. They have a great opportunity to meet with legislators, lobbyists and other decision makers across the state. They see how our state government runs, and how they see that is them actually portraying what the different roles are in our state government. They will act as senators or House of representatives. They write a bill. In their groups that they pick which topic area that they would like to write the bill on. They have an opportunity to present their bill to the legislators and lobbyists, as well as then put it through what we call the state government process with their Mock legislative process. This event is open to high school students across the state of Michigan. Then we have the great opportunity and we will talk a lot about this because youth voice is really important to us. Once you attend capital experience, you have the opportunity to apply to be on what we call our steering committee and the steering committee our previous members who have attended capital experience, and they help plan the next year's event. It's a great opportunity for them to take their learnings up to the next level and to be in a leadership role where they're working with our adult committee to plan next year's event. That is capital experience. We're going to then look at what we call occurs in the May. Of every year, again, back it up three months or so for the registration on the process is what we call our World Food Prize, Michigan State or Michigan Youth Institute. This is a program for young people in middle school through high school to basically dig into a global issue that is a affecting other countries around food. So the youth have an opportunity to pick the country and pick the issue that is occurring in that country and write what we call a research paper. Again, we're working with middle and high school kids. It's basically a page two, where they're going to write what the issue is in that country. Then what's some solutions for those issues that they have found in their research? The youth have an opportunity then to come to East Lansing and we have a full day where the youth have an opportunity to present their findings to a panel of small group panel it is, and we have experts in the field that will give them feedback. That is about a five minute presentation in that five minute presentation cues questions and answers. It's a very quick thing. Then the youth have an opportunity to tour around some things that occur at MSU. In the area of food securities and that. Again, this one has a next component to it, not a planning committee component to it, but if a young person really is interested in taking their project to the next level, then we do send youth to the World Food prize that occurs in Iowa, not the Michigan Youth Institute World Food Prize, but the actual World Food Price where young people will have that same opportunity to do it on a national level with people from all over the United States. That then occurs later after our institute occurs in May. That is our World Food Price State Youth Institute. Next we're going to highlight is one of our June events. It is for each exploration days. It is one of our premier pre college programs that lets you stay on campus for three days. They have over 100 different sessions to choose from that range from animal science related to physical activity to crafts to languages, to community service, to science based Go to the WKR studio, going on different field trips to different places, really so many sessions to attend. There is around 1,000 different youth from around the state that get to interact with them and get to spend time with them and get to learn and really get to experience what college life is like. They stay in the dorms. They have free time and they have to navigate campus, figure out what they're going to do during the free time activities that we have. They eat in the cafeterias. They have the bus system to navigate through campus to get to sessions and just really get to explore that entire campus. What college is like a little bit to them and finding classrooms and all those things. It is geared for youth that are ages 12 to 19. Registration usually starts in the end of March and goes till sometime in April. There's a county led orientation because you come as a county you come as a county group. There is an extra opportunity for youth that have attended previously. We have what's called the scheme team, and that's a youth steering committee, and you get to express interest for that after you've attended and you get to help make decisions on who the keynote might be. But the logo and the theme might be, give ideas for sessions and free time activities. Be part of the welcoming committee as everyone comes to campus on that Wednesday morning and really kind of build that environment for youth. So it's one of those opportunities that gets a lot of youth, a lot of people attend. It's some and so the steering committee is a group of youth that really helped plan that component. There's also our Michigan Fog State Awards program, which is another one of our opportunities. There's an entire application process for it. You get to really highlight what is your forage experience within a pop and an activity area. It involves creating an application and going through an interview process. There's two age levels. There's a junior level and a senior level. The junior level really just does the application process and the senior level gets to go through that interview component and it helps you prepare. Those applications are usually due in March or April, and then the interviews happen in May, and then they do the recognition of it during forage forage exploration days. It's that great opportunity to meet other people and showcase all the great things that youth have done in Fog. As a leader, this is a great one for you to really start to help you think about, how do they apply for this and fill out that application and support them through that process, especially if someone who's got a really huge spark in one specific area, how do they pull their whole forage experience together and talk about it and showcase what they've done in that area? Then we have a July slash August, where this one next one falls is a Great Lakes Natural Resources camp. It is held up in Prasco County. It's a really a camp experience where you get to explore natural resources. They go hiking, they do forest trails. They do a lot of different education around the Great Lakes ecosystem and exploring how that fits together through a whole camp experience. Applications for that one are also a few months back. It's one that if you've got someone who's really into natural resources and wants a really great camp experience, this is a great one for youth to consider. So, next one is something we're super proud of here in Michigan. It's called the state Youth Leadership Council. Many years ago, but not that far ago not that far back. We had a group of young people that had a great opportunity to travel to a national event, and they came back and they said, we're hearing a lot about all these state level leadership opportunities. Why don't we have one in Michigan and we're like, Well, we don't. We didn't have a good reason. It was just no one had done that in our state. This truly came out of youth voice as we talk a lot about that in these trainings. But the group of young people pushed us as staff and administration to say, we want to have a leadership statewide opportunity and have a really meaningful role in basically the state in our four each program at the state level. That was the birth of what we call the state youth leadership council. This council is for young people from the ages of 15 to 19. There is an application process that they will go through in interview in order to be selected to the group, and it's a two year commitment. If you have a young person because you can see the the ages is a 15 and 19. If you have a young person that applies when they're in the 19th year, the age wise for four H, they can carry over for their two year commitment. We don't just say, Oh, you only get one at that point, but it's a two year commitment. Then again, we're always rotating new people on every single year. And so we have a plether of young people from all across the state. We are currently notifying our new class, the 2024 2025 group that will be joining the previous year's youth, and we're excited to bring on six new youth this year that will join our current youth that are on there. The young people from all across Michigan, their for each experience is all different as well. We have young people on our program that their experience is the club setting where they have a for each club that they meet with at a monthly every twice a month or even a weekly experiences. To youth that have only come to expiration days and capital experience and our bigger statewide events. Therefore, each experience may not be a regular monthly club meeting type of thing. The cool thing about that is that we do get a very diverse experience of young people from all across the state. Obviously, as we're asking them to give opinions and ideas on things, that's what makes this group so valuable is because they do have a very diverse experience and they represent all of the state of Michigan. Young people are also asked to represent us by talking with legislators, talking with funders, entrepreneurs. We've had the great opportunity for them to be at retirement parties for national people in Congress and just representing us. We work on skills that make these young people successful so that they have that elevator speech. They can represent themselves, first most themselves, as well as the state of F age. It's a great opportunity for your young people to take that leadership experience that they are learning locally to the state level. These young people, we often see will also do the ski team and many of the other events and activities that we have, but if they're not able to do all of those, this is absolutely a great way. We've also trained these young people to co teach with us. At different times. We want to be true to what we say and that is the Their voice is important, and so we will train them to teach alongside a staff person so that we're doing that authentic youth voice where people can hear from young people about their experiences and their learnings and that. State youth leadership Council applications are always due in the late summer early fall, and we rotate them in at this point in the fall when a new Fg program year starts in September. So now we're going to spend a little bit of time looking at some of our opportunities that are around animal science and livestock component pieces. The first one is our forage animal science animal veterinary science camp. This is geared for ages 13 to 17 that really want to understand the veterinary science component and what it would take to become of that. It's right on campus. It has moved to a decamp three day decamp experience. They're there all day, explore pieces and there for three back to back days to really look and explore what it's in that veterinary science camp world. It's typically held in late June or early July and registration usually opens up. In April and May, it is highly competitive to get into so that youth that want to be into it, really need to be thinking about applying to be thinking about ahead of time and applying for it because it fills out very quickly and there are only so many slots for it. It's been the reason it was moved to a day camp component is they can offer it two different versions of it so that there was more slots available for additional youth to get the experience. We also have some very specifics around For State Livestock opportunities. There's the Animal Science career quest. This is typically held in February. It is a one day event on campus where you come and explore all the different opportunities that are related in animal science careers. It is plan in conjunction with the Department of Animal Science. There are professors teaching it. There's tours at there's opportunities at the different farms and really gets the opportunities to explore what are those things in animal science and where it could take you. There's the For Spring livestock workshop that's typically held in March and it provides really focuses on the beef sheep and swine area for volunteers and for youth leaders. So this is those youth that are really interested and being team leaders. They can come to this and gain skills that they could take back to their fog experience. There's that Four H FFA Mats judging contest that is held in May, and it would be for if you have a meats judging program or want to start one for you to really learn about how to judge meats and It's a great skill building opportunity because that can get people college scholarships at different places if they want to be a D Mets judging other places. Then there's a four H FFA livestock judging contest that is in June or July, typically, and it is a one day contest to really focus on that livestock evaluation piece. I'm going to talk a little bit about our statewide dairy opportunities. Again, you're going to see some of these livestock, the animal science career quest comes up again. It's because it does go across all of our animal science areas. And so just would like to really push and look at that because One of the things that we find are very important in our four H as we started this is where it's taken us, o4e experience or being a leader, alumni, anything like that, and a career can definitely be influenced and affected by their four e experience. It's a great opportunity for that to start early and experience that. We also have the four H dairy conference, which is traditionally in the first part of March. As well as then the Four H spring livestock workshop that Chris referenced in the previous slide that does cut across for dairy as well as livestock. These are opportunities for again, young people to explore careers, grow in their knowledge of nutrition, animal health, biosecurity. All of those really super important topics of not only for young people to be involved in four H and know those things, but also again, potentially, building on their skills that they may or may not make this a career or a livelihood or part of their family as they grow into their adult world and that. So Then last but not least in July, we have youth Dairy Days. Youth Dairy Days is as part of also a show, but it also has some judging parts of it, Sklethons, different things like that, and that is traditionally held in July as well. At the youth Dairy Days is you compete in many of the educational components, if they're on part of the winning teams and stuff, they get to compete at some national contests. Around dairy management and dairy livestock judging. That takes people to the next level and an opportunity outside of the state with that one. Very similar with that with the horses. We have, again, the animal science career quest, you're going to see there. But we have what we call our hypology contest, which will occur usually in March. And that program is usually you can come as an individual. Please know if you don't have a team of young people that can do this, they can compete as an individual, or they can compete as a team from your county. Um in July, sorry, it is, sorry, I'm live stock in March. They have the horse judging contest, again, individual and or eight team opportunity. And then in August, we have the Ste horse show, which is usually a 34 day event, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. I had to count them in my head. And this year, the committee is working hard at adding some new components to the state horse show. Watch for that if you are a horse person. But going back to what Chris said regarding the dairy, the hypology contest, and the horse judging contest, the individual or the teams that win in the state of Michigan have the opportunity to go to national events and represent our state at National judging and Hypology contests. Again, great opportunity for young people to showcase their skills as well as their knowledge. You as a leader, if you have young people that are looking to advance those areas beyond their county, helping them helping them figure out or making a hypology team or working with them to be individuals is a great opportunity for them to continue to advance and take their forage experience to a different level. We also have some state small animal opportunities. There's the state Forage rabbit Show, the State Forge rabbit and KV XPO, and the state Fage Dog Show. These are opportunities specifically for some competition based things. For youth that are in these project areas and they happen all of them happen on MS at the pavilion. There's also opportunities for those that are involved in shooting sports, we have the state tournament for 48 shooting sports. That's usually held in August. It rotates around the different places around the state and that's opportunity for you to compete in whatever disciplines they are in within shooting sport. Then there's also the national shooting sports contest and we have sent Michigan youth to that over the years, and they get to compete at the national level and their discipline area that they've been excelling in within their four H experiences. The national shooting sports usually occurs in the fall at this point. Yeah, it's really fun to see the young people advance and keep going at different levels. The national conference, those are our state ones. Our state shooting sports moved us into a little bit of national and we reference some other national conferences that can move up. But those are are state level opportunities that we hold and host every single year. Now we're going to move into what we call our national for each conferences. Please know what we did not touch on at the state. I'll touch on a little bit as we move into our national one. But many of our state and international when we get to that comes with a price tag to them. We hope that as the young people are exploring that, that we can or you can as a leader, help the young person look at different avenues in order to help fund raise and or find the money and sponsorship in order for them to attend. I'll talk a little bit about some of the price tags at the national level because they're a little steep. I'm compared to what our state ones are, but please note that our other state ones do often come with a price tag as well. The National F H Conference is an event that occurs annually in Washington, DC. It is a leadership in civic engagement conference. They are young people from all over the United States that are interested in more or less the national type of government. They have an opportunity to connect and work with federal agencies. They have round tables where they're discussing issues that are concerns and making recommendations and having an opportunity really to facilitate their youth voice and making a difference with the federal agencies that are at the table with them. They have an opportunity also the visit with senators and representatives, and then after they attend one year, there is an opportunity for them to apply to also be on what they call a design team, as well as a a peer facilitator in the future. National Conference for us here in Michigan. We take representations of students every other year. In our odd years, we will take a group of youth and travel with them. We have a staff person who coordinates and organizes it, and then also will make arrangements for the appropriate chaperones that we are required to have to attend with our young people traveling. In 2025, we will take a delegate of group that will go to National Conference, and that is usually we actually, I think it's set for April, the dates have been released. Is usually in the March 1 part of April, that that occurs. I know for many, it's a spring break time, but it is truly a great experience for our young people to go. That conference is going to run approximately anywhere $1500-2 thousand. Rc, I know. They do travel by air, and that price tag though includes everything once they are there, except they're spending money, but it would include all their meals or hotel. Airfare, all of those types of things. National Conference again, is a spring thing and we will travel in 2025 with a delegation of young people from Michigan. The next one that's going to sound very familiar to what National Conference was, but this trip is called Citizenship Washington Focus. Citizenship Washington focus is a trip that we travel every other year with. And actually, I just flipped them. We will travel, I apologize for that. We will travel with CW in 2025. We just traveled with National Conference in 2024. I flipped that. I apologize. Every other year conference and citizenship, Washington focus. It's 2025, we will travel with CW F. We will shorten citizenship, Washington focus too. This is also a trip that goes to Washington DC. It is for high school age youth, anywhere from ages 15 to 19. The trip usually occurs most of the time right after expiration days. Literally, we have taken youth on a delegation right from East Lansing from expiration days and put them on a bus and head to Gettysburg because we extend the conference by going out a day or two early and spending some time in Gettysburg beforehand. This trip is a bus transportation trip. We have a group of young people with appropriate number of chaperones, all traveling to Washington DC overnight by bus. The destinations that they get to see they're there, they get to see the Capitol, visit with senators and representatives. This one really truly focuses on learning about national government and how our federal government operates where National Conference focuses a little bit more, although at Washington DC, and there is some interaction with the government is more on the How our a government agencies interact with the government. They'll also visit and see Mount Vernon. We go to the Arlington National Cemetery and the presidential and war monuments and memorials and Museums there in Washington, DC. Again, it's a really nice trip. We usually do try to fill a complete charter bus to go out. We don't take the school buses. I think that's more for us as chaperones who go with them. It's a little bit better of a ride than a school bus because I've done a school bus with my children on this similar trip. But it is a charter bus and we have opportunities for young people to really dive in and learn a little bit more about our federal government. Again, this is a trip. We have people from all over the United States convening on Washington, DC pretty much within about a three week window of time. It's a super great opportunity. Again, this trip is going to cost the young person right near that 15 to $2,000 mark. Hopefully, again, we'll be able to look and brainstorm some ideas and how young people can raise that money to attend. Our next one, which I will say I have a little partiality to it is one of my favorite ones to attend. This is National for each Congress. Congress occurs every year over Thanksgiving weekend. We do send delegates every year. This is just seems to be one that it fills up and it's different enough compared to the other two. They have a similar component that we feel that we travel every year for this. This is a picture you can see right here of a group of young people that went. They're in Atlanta, Georgia, so that is a park that they got to explore and jump all over that. That playground area, this says Atlanta there. But it occurs in Atlanta Georgia. It's a five day trip. We leave the morning after Thanksgiving. This is also a trip that we fly with our young people to Atlanta Georgia. This program emphasizes leadership development and hands on projects around service. While we were there, the young people will get team building opportunities with youth from all over the United States. They also get leadership breakout sessions where they will learn about their leadership skill and skill development, and then they also have a community service project. While we're there, one day, invade different parts of Atlanta Georgia and do a community service project for parks and schools and all different types of community service opportunities. It also has a international food celebration evening, which is a lot of fun where you get to taste test food from all over the world. We have a gala dinner and a dance. There are famous guest speakers that break during the sessions. It's really truly a great leadership opportunity. Again, we leave the Friday morning after Thanksgiving, we return Tuesday night. This would also be a program that requires the young people to be out of school for two days of the trip that. Again, our delegation is set for this year already. They will be leaving here in just a little over a month. But this is also a price tag of about 1,500 to 2000. A lot of these that the window we give that price tag will depend on the airfare. That is our biggest thing, not being able to narrow it down. A tighter than that is because we just don't know what our airfare cost is going to be to get the young people there. This is also appropriately chaperone with a number of adults based on the youth that are traveling and it's just a super great experience for young people to meet. The last group that delegation that I took We had 46 states represented at National Congress, including Puerto Rico. There was Hawaii, Alaska, even programs that if some people think, Wow, would they travel for something like that? It was really super great to see the number of delegates and the youth that able to meet young people from all over the United States. Our next one that we're going to talk about. So we're going to move into what we call our international programs. Again, state national, now international because four e programs truly can take you to so many different places. Internationally, we have opportunities for students to either host a young person in their home and what we call our inbound programs, or they can also travel outbound. Currently, we host international youth from Japan for a month during the summer. That pickup time is usually the young people arrive towards the end of July and are here for three to four weeks following starting the end part of July and then go into August and that. You choose to host a young person, does not mean you have to travel. If you travel as an outbound does not mean you have to host an inbound, but it is a great opportunity to do both if that is of interest to you or do one or the other, whatever your family dynamics and situation works for the young people. We do travel abroad for about a month during the summer to Japan. We have also Norway, South Korea, Argentina, and Costa Rica programs at this point that young people can choose. These programs are done through what we call our states four H program. These are not programs that we have staff or volunteers or chaperons attend with them. These are truly exchange programs where they may fly and there may be that opportunity like our inbound students all arrive together, and then we have a matching family ceremony and things like that. Similar to the outbound, but we do not send staff. Or chaperones necessarily to go there with them. State F H will have adults in the countries with them, but it's not what our staff does here locally. State F H International Exchange Programs is a yearly thing. It's quite a hefty can't even tell you what that price tag is, but we would be sure to happy to get that information if you have a young person that would like to travel internationally. If you're going to host, the cost is whatever you would like to do with that young person. And of course, food, things like that, but it's up to you and that. You must have a young person within an age bracket of the youth that are arriving in order to host if you are looking at that experience. If I will say, if traveling is not an opportunity or hosting is not an opportunity for your home, We do offer two different ways that we promote what we call an international experience. We have what we call the grab and go crafts around the world. This as a club leader is something that you can do in your club meetings, and these are activities, crafts that you can teach young people around the countries of Africa, Europe, Asia, Australia, North America, and South America. Those are the continents that these activities are coming from and it's a great opportunity to have our young people stay right here, in their home, in your club, in your county and still have a little bit of a flavor of what it means to explore from other countries. Then we also have what we call the Visual Letter art Exchange. Again, very easy program, where you'll stay locally. You're not hosting But you can we have different art exchanges, letter exchanges, and it is truly just a visual exchange of either art or letters. That is something that you could also do as a club or individuals in your club could do that. Again, offering an opportunity for young people to have that experience by staying home even, and that's just as important for young people to feel that they can see the world if traveling is not in the cards for them at this point. Those are the internal national and state opportunities. I think Chris is going to talk to you a little bit about what we can do for that. So how does here? Yeah. Your role as a club leader or a volunteer within your county program is to really how do you support you to know about these opportunities and utilize them? The first thing is you need to know the sparks that are within your club. What are your club members have sparks for? What are their interests? When you know those, it helps you think about in Taylor, what are the opportunities you want to share for them. But how do you learn about these opportunities. There's a few different ways Watch for information in your county newsletter. This stuff is often shared in your county newsletters. So when that comes e mailed out to you, please pay attention to that. The other thing is watch for Forage online news blasts. We often send out news blasts at the state level through FH online that showcase some of these different events. So you can learn about them. We share them right before registration, so people learn about them. You can join MSU extension news listers. These are sent These are sent out at the first of every month and it's a news digest of what's in certain areas. I put the link in the chat and how you can join these constant contacts listers. You can pick out there's a whole bunch of topics. You can pick out which one happens. But these include events that are coming up in that area, articles that go with it, give some information about it. Then also follow Michigan Fg on Facebook and Instagram because we will highlight when those different events are coming up with. This one's not in there, but if you know after you've heard about these today and you're like, Oh, my gosh, I know that there are youth in my club who are really interested in this one, have a conversation with your local Fa staff member about, Hey, I really want, don't let me miss this. This is something I know that Susie and my club would really be super interested in after I've learned her spark and have built that relationship with her. Showcase that and then get that information to you. Janelle often talked that many of these had a cost that went with them. It is important to know that there are you could help your you do fund raising opportunities for it. Sometimes local forage councils have money that they help offset these costs for people. You could help them go to different local entities to see if someone would give them a little bit of a sponsorship. You could be that support to have them help figure out how to bring that cost down for themselves. And as we always are talking about in our series of trainings here, the importance of our youth voice. We have all of these great opportunities that we just talked about, state national internationally, but they're only as good as the interests that the young people have. And so with us locally, as I stats we talked about going through, we locally have taken our state programs and made them a youth voice opportunity. With capital experience, we want those young people to help us plan next year's trip. Or next year's program. They're on a steering committee. They're the ones leading the youth through the government simulation. They're the one who is planning it. They're deciding the big topic areas where they'll write the bills from. Very much an opportunity for young people to step up with their leadership skills and their voice be heard at a state level. As Chris said, the scheme team for expiration days is a reminder. You attend expiration days once, you can apply for the scheme team. You arrive early, you get to have a leadership role. You have a bigger say and how things happen. Great Lakes Natural Resources camp after you attend that, you can apply to be what we call the teen counselor because that camp requires teen counselors to help the younger members who attend. Again, another opportunity for young people to step up and do it. As I talked about National Conference, they could apply to be at the national level. To be one of the facilitators. National Congress also has a youth leadership component, T pieces of it. One is informal. The group that's going to be attending National Congress this year is going to start planning next year's program for them by deciding where they're going to eat, what their shirts are going to look like because they get matching shirts to travel with. Informally, they're going to have a leadership opportunity to help and give input for what next year's group is going to experience while they're down there, outside the things that we have control of. As well as a young person can apply to beyond what they call the national Design team. And so we have had two young people from the state of Michigan in the last five years who applied to be on the National design team and was actually the youth leaders of that national program. There are some great opportunities for young people to have their voice heard in the planning and designing of many of our programs, but most importantly, what we want to really do is hear their voice on what they want to do. If you're casually having a conversation with a young person, they're like, I think it would be really cool to learn more about this, XYZ, ADC. Then now hopefully you're a little bit more aware of the state, national international programs that we have to offer. You can help connect these young people by them just basically using their simple voice of saying, I'm interested in this. Maybe that is that spark that Chris talked about, that's going to be so important that will lead them to their future. Much like we started how everything that we talked about. With that future, I would like to say this too. Many of our programs have the component of what we call pre college, I think Chris referenced it with their expiration days. But the following programs, capital experience, World Food Prize Expiration days in Great Lakes Natural Resources camp. The young people can apply to be in a pool of applicants to get a college scholarship from MSU. It is a great opportunity for them to really, truly take that spark and make it possibly help them pay for a college in the future or a portion of it, as we know it's only going to be a portion, but they have their have their voice heard and be part of something bigger. So we are now wrapping up our formal part of the presentation where we shared all the opportunities that are out there for you to experience.