The Conejo Valley 4-H club is located in Thousand Oaks.

This year our theme is: Fine Art. We have worked with water colors, made tie-dye shirts and this month we will decorate blown out eggs.

The Conejo Valley 4-H club participates in many community service projects including: Trick or Treat So Others Can Eat, Project Linus, we recycle books and eyeglasses, pet shelter supply drives, People-to people lunches and Stockings 4 Troops.

Some of the projects we currently have in the club are: International Foods, Leadership, Pet Therapy, Sewing, Marine Biology, and Poultry.

Our members participate in Small Animal Science Field Day and County
Presentation Day.

This article is part of our Featured Club Happenings series in our Ventura County 4-H Clover Lines newsletter. These newsletters and others produced by our office can be found on our website.

4-H has a wide assortment of projects for youth to choose from. The variety of projects allows members to explore many topics.

Written and submitted by Santa Rosa Valley 4-H

Santa Rosa Valley 4-H is a diverse club with members ranging in age from 5 to 19 years old. It is fun to see the older kids come home from college to go to the fair. And it is fun to see the younger members get excited with their first animal project of guinea pigs, rabbits or chickens. Our club has offered our members so many different types of projects. One of our biggest is the equine project. We had about 20 members riding or learning to harness horses with carts.

Another active group is our backpacking project that went on hikes or backpacking trips nearly every month. Our cake decorating group and cavy project entered projects at Super Field Day. Our photography and jewelry making projects entered their pieces to the fair. New this year was a blanket making project that offered younger kids an opportunity to learn this new skill. Our poultry project once again formed a team and won awards at the Avian Bowl. We made bread and butter on a cold afternoon in January and canned blackberry jam in June. Another new project was the mini-cattle. Project members learned to halter break and groom steers and cows and even watched the birth of a new calf!

At the fair we had projects entered in the youth building. And in the livestock dept, we had our lamb, pygmy goat, beef, swine, rabbit, cavies and poultry projects entered. It was fun to see our kids running around the livestock area with their club members and their friends from other clubs. It is rewarding to see our club members meeting up with their friends from 4-H clubs around the county. Everyone helps each other with their animals and cleaning stalls.

Our club also works to make sure we all participate in community service. Each year we participate in California Coastal Cleanup, Trick-or-Treat So Others Can Eat and Operation Gratitude.

We end our 4-H year with our annual pool party and potluck. This is a chance for all our members to have fun, get to know each other better and eat some great dishes. We also give out our club awards at this fun event.

Each year we try to make our club a little bit better. We enjoy hearing how other clubs work so we can learn from them. This coming year our goal is to become a closer group and share among our projects. We hope to see the other clubs at the county events this year. It is going to be another great 4-H year!

This article is part of our Featured Club Happenings series in our Ventura County 4-H Clover Lines newsletter. These newsletters and others produced by our office can be found on our website.

4-H provides many opportunities for youth, including learning leadership and teamwork skills.

Written and submitted by Somis 4-H Secretary Hannah Gregson

In the beginning of the 2011-12 Somis 4-H year, we had about 30 members join our club. As a great kick-off to the year, we started with the Ventura County Fair! A handful of our members entered an animal project, poultry, swine, lamb, and beef! A couple of our members also entered in the horse fair! We all did a fantastic job and one of our members even won Grand Champion Barrow and overall Swine Grand Champion!

Somis 4-H has a variety of projects. Projects range from community service to animal projects. Community service is a big thing to Somis 4-H. Every month we volunteer at the Oxnard Rescue Mission, we have beach clean ups, and we also have a graffiti task force. Some other projects that will be offered this year are cooking, sewing, and gardening.

This year’s calendar is full of exciting activities. Some of the activities that we all look forward to are the fair in August, TOTSOCE in October, and December is Christmas Caroling for the elderly.

This article is part of our Featured Club Happenings series in our Ventura County 4-H Clover Lines newsletter. These newsletters and others produced by our office can be found on our website.

4-H has been helping to educate youth for generations. Practical, hands-on learning and community service are central to this youth development program.

Written and submitted by Mupu 4-H

Mupu 4-H is based in Santa Paula, but has members from all over the county.

Mupu’s biggest project is the swine project, with over 40 members raising a pig for the fair this year. The swine project members had a field trip to The Old Fashioned Country Butcher to learn how to make sausage. Each member brought 5 pounds of pork and did the sausage making, mixing, stuffing, and wrapping, themselves under the supervision of Kent Short.

Mupu also has sheep, market goats, and pygmy goats going to the fair. Mupu has award-winning rabbit and cavies projects. Mupu 4-H’ers have won gold medals with their cavies as well as in showmanship judging.

Cooking is also a very popular project with 3 different age groups. Members have learned how to make dinners, desserts, and appetizers. Of course the best part is eating everything at the end of each meeting.

For outdoor activities, the hiking project has been on many great hikes this year. A hike up to the Punch Bowls is always a great adventure. Parents and dogs are always welcome to join in the fun.

The gardening project is in full swing. They have been on field trips, and started their garden a few months ago. The presentation project had many members win gold.

Mupu 4-H members also do a lot of community service. Each meeting they collect donations for Heifer International. This year they collected enough money to donate a flock of ducks, a flock of geese, a flock of chicks, a trio of rabbits, and honeybees. Members participate each year in Relay for Life, walking for 24 hours to raise money for cancer research.

In September, members work on the Coastal Clean-up, and then go to Joe’s Crab Shack for lunch. Santa Paula Beautiful is another clean up day for Mupu where members are active in cleaning up trash in Fagan Park. In October, the club collects canned food for the Rotary Canned Food Drive.

Graduating Mupu 4-H seniors are eligible to apply for the Barbara Wilson-Mupu 4-H Scholarship. This year the winners were Ashleigh Clendening $800, Edward Lopez $700, and Charlotte Ellburg $700. Congratulations!

This article is part of our Featured Club Happenings series in our Ventura County 4-H Clover Lines newsletter. These newsletters and others produced by our office can be found on our website.

UC Cooperative Extension’s Mupu 4-H Club has many projects for members to enjoy, including raising sheep.