4-H Homesteader Club brings after school learning opportunities

from Home & Garden 2023

Practicing energy eﬃciency

BY LILY KINCAID GREEN VALLEY — Riv-

erside Elementary School is growing its outdoor learning program with the 4-H Homesteader Club.

The project dates back to 2019, when Jamie Johnson was principal at RES. Johnson worked with the Avery County Cooperative Extension and the High Country Charitable Foundation to search for funding and create a plan.

In fall 2020, Whitney Baird became the principal at RES, and despite the challenges that the pandemic brought about, she continued building toward the outdoor learning program. By summer 2021, 14 raised garden beds were built at RES and just a few months later, in October, a greenhouse was constructed at the school as well.

Now, the garden beds and greenhouse serve as a way to enhance children’s learning experiences at RES. Teachers tie the outdoor learning structures into their curriculum, allowing students to get hands-on experience alongside what they learn in the classroom.

“It’s a really cool project,” said Avery Cooperative Extension Agent Bobbie Willard. “The whole purpose is teaching kids self-sufficiency.”

In fall 2021, the 4-H Homesteader Club started. Initially, the club was only for fourth and fifth graders, meeting twice monthly. The school took time this past fall to find parent volunteers to help and now, the club has made a comeback and is here to stay.

The 4-H Homesteader Club is open to all RES students, Kindergarten through fifth grade. The purpose of the club is to give students the opportunity for more outdoor learning, with the garden beds and greenhouses and beyond. In addition to planting, growing, harvesting and selling produce, the club aims to educate children about a variety of topics, including hunter safety, farm safety, pest management, entrepreneurship and more.

“I think long term, the goal was that once they know how to do it, then they can also take it home and do it with their families,” Baird said.

The goal is to teach kids skills that they may not otherwise learn, like how to sew a button back onto a shirt or how to can tomatoes. Eventually, the club will be mostly run by the students, with the help of a club leader, and they envision older students teaching the younger students what they’ve learned, Willard said.

“Homesteading is so wide open,” Willard said. “4-H’s new thing is ‘find your spark.’ We’re introducing kids to so many different things, and hopefully they’ll find something they’re passionate about.”

RES hasn’t run out of ideas for its outdoor learning program, either. The school plans to expand the outdoor facilities to include a trail, a barn, livestock and apple trees, Baird said. They’re currently looking for funding to move forward with those plans, and they also want to start allowing students to sell their produce in the summer and before or after school in an effort to teach them about the whole process of farming, from planting the seeds to selling or preserving what they harvest. The profits from this mini farmers market will go back into the garden, Baird said.

Part of the goal with the program is to hopefully encourage some kids to decide to be farmers, said Jerry Moody, Avery County Extension Director. In the future, they hope to possibly replicate the program with other schools, have the FFA students at the high school work with the younger students and show them that older kids are interested in agriculture, too, he said.

Willard said the best part of this entire project is the partnership between the school and the cooperative extension. As a program, 4-H exists to enhance what the schools are doing and teaching, she said.

“The beauty of all this is the partnership between Riverside, the cooperative extension office, the parents, kids, community, Kiwanis and the High Country Charitable Foundation,” she said.

The opportunities wouldn’t have been possible without support from the parents, teachers, community and organizations like Kiwanis Club of Banner Elk and the High Country

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Charitable Foundation, Baird said. Amber Singleton, who has a child in preschool at Riverside, has stepped up to be the Club Leader for the 4-H Homesteader Club. In addition, Bill Hoffman from the cooperative extension, Moody, volunteers at Camp Linn Haven, the Quartz Corp, Sibelco, students from Lees-McRae, Avery County Government, Avery County Board of Education, SkyLine SkyBest and Wheels Contracting were community partners that RES also developed and received support from for this project.