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Montgomery County 4-H Calendar

December 13: Togetherhood “Wrap Party”; 5:30PM @ YMCA

December 15: 4honline enrollment/re-enrollment deadline

December 20: Red Oak Clover Kids; 5PM @ Extension Office

December 25-26: Office Closed-Merry Christmas!

January 1: Office Closed-Happy New Year!

January 7: Beef Weigh-In; 2-3PM @ R.O. Livestock Market

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4-H

Rachel Bergren MONTGOMERY COUNTY EXTENSION

Program Coordinator rbergren@iastate.edu 712-623-2592 office

GREEN GAZETTE / / December 2017

4-H

CREATES

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Beef Weigh-in will be held January 7th from 2-3 PM at Red Oak Livestock Market. If you are unable to attend, you must contact the office for alternate options at other county weigh-ins.

For all FFA Beef: All weigh-in rules remain the same, contact the office for 4honline information (FFA members do not have a 4honline profile)

Market Beef: Must be weighed in and verified by the 4-H’er on 4honline by February 1. State Fair and Ak-Sar-Ben animals must be retinal scanned at weigh –in ($5 per animal fee) . Animals must receive a 4-H ear tag at weigh in.

Pen of Three: Must be weighed in and verified by the 4-H’er on 4honline by February 1. Animals must receive a 4-H ear tag at weigh-in.

*NEW* Pen of three will now be housed at the fairgrounds during fair (however, these animals are not shown in the show ring) Contact the office if you are interested or want to know more about the Pen of Three class!

Breeding Beef: Do not need to be weighed in, but must be entered by 4-H’er into 4honline by May 15 or they are not eligible for County or State Fair

–Did you remember to re-enroll in 4honline? If not, please hop on over to https://iowa.4honline.com and update your profile!

Remember, if your family already has a profile you will just go back and use that same profile—

don’t make a new one! If you have problems logging in & can’t remember your password

please call the Extension Office for assistance!

For new family members, use your same family profile, just add another member!

When re-enrolling please make sure all contact information is up to date! This is our only

way to communicate with you—if your email address/home address is outdated you aren't

receiving the Green Gazette and other important information and reminders throughout the

year!

**Also, don’t forget to choose your “correspondence preference” of email or mail—this is how you

will receive your monthly newsletter. This can be changed under your “Family Information”.

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Junk-in-a-Bucket

We will be having Junk-in-a-Bucket contest again this

year at the County Fair!!

This is an adventure in creativity and skill development for our 4-H youth. Sign up for Junk-in-a-

bucket, and you will receive a bucket of random junk, mostly weld-able, for you to create a piece of

art with. Creations will be voted on by People’s choice, with the top exhibit going to the Region 17

Challenge of Champions in Council Bluffs in early August. The creations will also be put up for a

silent auction as a fundraiser for the Montgomery County Youth Council to fund scholarships and

other leadership activities.

You can also choose to enter this creation in Visual Arts if you design and finish your piece, or if

you will be going to design, fully assemble, and finish your piece by yourself, enroll in Mechanics/

Welding! (These will still be silent auctioned, in the event a creation is selected for State Fair, the

creation will be delayed getting to the auction buyer to allow exhibition at the State Fair). Be sure

to register in the proper project area if you wish to enter this as a static exhibit

Your bucket will contain a lot of unique parts and pieces. You can paint, fasten, glue, weld to con-

struct your piece. The only rules are: You cannot add any pieces (exception of bolts for fastening

and adding movement to a piece) and you must use at least 75% of the items in the bucket.

Sound like fun? To register, contact Rachel at rbergren@iastate.edu,

Celine at cmbeggs@iastate.edu

or 712-623-2592 by February 9th!

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LET’S SHARE THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS! The Togetherhood Committee of the Montgomery County Family YMCA is

again sponsoring Adopt a Child for Christmas. We have many children in

our area that will not receive any special gifts this year for Christmas. The

need is there.... now we just need sponsors. This is an opportunity that we

have to show our children and other family members how to give to those

in need this Christmas. Each child’s gift should not exceed $40 (and can be

less). If you don’t want to shop, monetary donations are welcome and

the committee will shop for you. Stocking stuffers for the group are great as

well! If you are interested in this program, please stop by the YMCA after

November 28 to pick up the information. Unwrapped gifts should be

brought to the Y by December 13. If you have any questions about this

program, please call John Blomsted at the YMCA (712-623-2161).

ADOPT A CHILD THIS CHRISTMAS!

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East Sunrisers Reporters Report

The East Sunrisers 4-H club held their annual potluck and meeting on October 8th at the Southwest Valley Middle School. We talked about National 4-H week and making posters for the hallways of the school. The deadline to enroll for 4-H online is December 15th. There was no old business dis-cussed at the meeting. We then moved into new business. We discussed 4-H’ers for 4-H campaign and club officer training. The next meeting was set for November 12th at the Advent Christian Church at 4pm. The East Sunrisers 4-H club held another meeting on November 12th with a location change at the Methodist Church in Villisca. We discussed the 4-H awards program on November 19th in the Gold Fair Building in Red Oak. Beef weigh-in is in December, and the date has not been decided. Dis-cussion was made about the Villisca Craft Fair on November 18th. We talked about adopt a family or adopt a child. The next meeting will be held on December 10th and the location has not been de-cided.

Farm Service Agency Youth Loan Program

Farm Service Agency offers a variety of opportunities for kids 10 through the age

of 20 with their Youth Loan program. Loan funds may be used to buy animals,

equipment, and supplies. Buy, rent or repair needed tools or equipment, or pay

operating expenses for a project. These are direct loans and have a maximum

loan amount of $5,000.00 over a period of 1 to 7 years. Current interest rate is

2.750% for the month of November and slightly varies month to month. Addi-

tional information and application forms for these youth projects are available

from your local FSA office, or you can give us a call at 712-623-2527.

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Scholarships for 4-H’ers!! Are you an Iowa 4-H'er planning to attend college? The Iowa 4-H Foundation knows it's not easy to fi-

nance a college education, and we know that many Iowa 4-H'ers can use help achieving their educa-

tional goals. Consider applying for an Iowa 4-H Scholarship, funded by donors through the Iowa 4-H

Foundation. Designed to encourage Iowa 4-H members to continue their education beyond high

school, our current scholarship program offers 90 scholarships worth more than $90,000. Scholarships

range in value from $500 to $10,000.

All applications are due February 1, 2017, 11:59 p.m. (Exception: Hills Bank Leadership Grant deadline extended - see below)

A list of scholarships and qualifications can be found at the application site:

https://www.iowa4hfoundation.org/index.cfm?nodeID=31466&audienceID=1

To be eligible for any of the Iowa 4-H Foundation Scholarships 2 letters of recommendation are re-

quired - one from an Extension staff member or 4-H volunteer and one from a school/college academic

advisor or teacher. College undergraduates may submit both letters from academic advisors. Hills

Bank Leadership Grant applicants will also need 2 letters of recommendation from either from a

community member, employer, or volunteer and from a school teacher or academic advisor. Within the

application is a section to send the requests for a letter to be submitted on your behalf. Please begin

your application in a timely fashion to give your recommenders time to submit their letter.

Montgomery County Soil and Water Conservation District Scholarship Montgomery SWCD offers a $500 scholarship to any student that LIVES in the Montgomery County and pursuing programs of study in any field of conservation or agriculture. While this is a wide field and many studies qualify, preference will be given to students pursing programs of study in conserva-tion. The board of commissioners select one scholarship to then be sent on for further judging and additional scholarship opportunities. The scholarship must be used for the student’s first year of col-lege education. Applications are available at the Extension office, via email, or can be located at the website: cdiowa.org. Applications are due February 16, 2018 to the Montgomery County Soil and Wa-ter Conservation District office in Red Oak.

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