Henderson County 4-H club members stay busy year round in a wide spectrum of pursuits and the Athens Kiwanis, Tuesday, heard from two who recently traveled for special events.
Anna Cole and Andrew Childress told the crowd at Tilo’s of a couple programs involving fish and food.
Cole recently went to Corpus Christi for Coastal Brigade, which is part of the non-profit Texas Brigade program. It’s a five-day conservation leadership camp available for students ages 13 to 17.
“Throughout camp, they teach us all different things,” Cole said. “One of them is casting, how to use a fly fishing rod and how to cast different kind of reels.”
One night they went fishing and the following day took part in a competition to see who could land the longest fish.
The students keep a journal during the week telling what they learned about coastal life.
At the end of the week the journals are taken up and ranked.
Throughout the week there are numerous competitions and a focus on leadership and team building.
On the last night, the students created posters and tri-fold concerning something they found particularly interesting.
“Mine was on saw fish,” Cole said.
This is her second year to attend Brigades. The first time, she picked Bass Brigades. When she returns, next year, she plans to move away from the water and attend the Buckskin Brigade.
Childress has been in 4-H since he was in Clover Kids about 11 years ago. He recently took part in a program called “food poverty.”
To achieve food security you need access to nutritionally adequate foods.
“If you have a pantry full of cookies, chips or chocolate bars, that’s not going to meet your daily requirement of vitamins you need,” Childress said.
In the United States, 12% are experiencing food poverty.
Childress said parts of the United States are food deserts, meaning you’d have to drive several miles to get the kind of food you need.
“There might be a grocery store only 20 miles away, but people might not have a car or might have low income, or there might be a high crime rate,” Childress said.
A topic Childress presented at State Roundup was “food swamps.” That’s where the area is flooded with fast food restaurants or convenience stores, but no nearby source of a well rounded diet.
Millions in the population aren’t able to buy healthy food because they lack an adequate income. Globally, 40% of the people are living on $5.50 a day. Many of the working poor are not rising above the poverty line despite having jobs, Childress said.
“According to the University of Chicago, COVID-19 has increased the poverty rate by 2.4%,”he said.
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