The world has changed in 50 years, but the Yorkton Creators 4H Club has stayed steady through all of them. The club recently celebrated its 50th anniversary with a celebration at York Lake.
Audrey Ashcroft, Glenn Gress and Vi Protz all spoke to Yorkton This Week for the anniversary event.
Ashcroft has not been there since the beginning, but her family has. She wanted to, but was a bit too young to get involved right at launch, but her mom was one of the founding members.
“I’m not quite a founding member, but I’m pretty close!”
The club has had its ups and downs over the year, from membership over 100 to under 7. But for Ashcroft said that the highlight for her is the achievement days.
“It’s really exciting to see an achievement day when everybody has accomplished something that they set out six or nine months ago to do.”
Protz has been part of the club for 32 years, ever since moving to Yorkton, being a project leader, and general leader since 1991. For her, sewing, knitting and curling have been her projects, all things she loves.
While 4H is focused on kids, Protz said it’s for everyone.
“It’s good for them to learn. The motto is learn to do by doing, and I’m still learning to do by doing, even though I’ve got this thing [a walker] now. I’ve told the kids, as long as you need me, I’ll stay, and they keep needing me!”
While the milestone in Yorkton has been half a century, 4H itself has been around for over 100, said Gress, and the motto of ‘Learn by doing’ has been a constant for that entire time. The local program is part of a much larger problem.
“There are a lot of groups in different areas. We have clubs, districts, regionals and provincials,” said Ashcroft.
The idea is to teach kids useful life skills that they will be able to use for the rest of their life.
“The projects are taught by people who are actually doing.”
Locally, some of the successful programs have been beef, dairy, light horse, canine, sewing and knitting.
That said, the programs are based around what the kids want to do. Ashcroft said.
“Kids usually lead with the idea they would like to learn. Then they have to find someone who will teach them. So, for example, my daughter decided that she wanted to rebuild a motorcycle. So that’s what she did. She found somebody to teach the project, and she could basically use the knowledge. The same with the welding class, you have to find somebody willing to lead.”
While 4H is associated with rural youth, Ashcroft emphasizes that it’s a program for everyone, and clubs have options no matter what the kids might be interested in.
“It isn’t for rural, it never really was. They have babysitting courses that teach you how to babysit, they have curling, they have skiing, they have camps.”
“We are starting an urban diversification program in Regina and Saskatoon to get involved, to know what agriculture is all about,” added Gress.
They are putting an effort to get kids province-wide to learn more about agriculture, Gress said, because it’s important that kids know the impact agriculture makes on our society.
“We are working on different programs with the government and different organizations to get the kids to understand where their food is coming from,” said Gress.
Another highlight for Gress and Ashcroft is public speaking, something everybody does at the club level. Two people go on to Toronto to do speeches from the province.
“I’ve seen kids who started out at six years old and they were absolutely terrified, and in two years they will out speak anybody. Public speaking is such an important part of 4H because you’re going to be using that for the rest of your life. I’ve managed a lot of companies over the years, and you can tell 4H kids when they came into interviews. They would look at you eye-to-eye level and they were not scared to talk to you directly,” Gress said.
For Protz, a highlight is seeing kids grow, up and bring their own kids to 4H years later.
“It’s wonderful!”
