4-H Kids Venture Beyond the Farm

In the highly urbanized East Bay, one group of young people spent the year on some decidedly non-urban endeavors — raising pigs, sheep and rabbits, and growing prize-seeking vegetables in a backyard garden. 

The Redwood 4-H club is currently showing off its hard work at the Alameda County Fair, proving that the fair isn’t just about funnel cakes and Ferris wheels for the underage crowd. 

On a recent, hot afternoon, the club’s gardening group was harvesting beets, lettuce, parsley and Brussels sprouts to show at the fair. They’ve been growing the vegetables since October in raised beds in the Oakland hills back yard of Redwood club co-leader Barbara Butko. 

“Hey, lookit,” 8-year-old Conchita called out to Butko, holding up two red, fist-sized beets by their stalks. 

Conchita’s mother, Shane Rivers, from Castro Valley, strolled through the garden nearby with Taylor, a 4-H exchange student visiting from Minnesota. Rivers’s four girls, ages 6 through 14, are members of Redwood 4-H, which counts among its ranks young people from San Leandro, Hayward, Castro Valley, San Lorenzo and elsewhere in the East Bay. 

The three youngest Rivers girls participate in the garden project. Shane said growing vegetables had changed her daughters’ attitudes about eating them. 

“I didn’t think I could actually get them to eat a beet,” Rivers said, “and then they’re like, ‘I’ll eat it.’” 

From backyard sheep to creative photography

Rural Minnesota, where Taylor, the exchange student, lives, is where I would expect to find flourishing 4-H groups, not the East Bay. Even Taylor seemed surprised by the extent of Redwood’s activities. 

“In Minnesota, if you don’t have a farm, you can’t really do this,” she said, as we strolled up a slight hill to where two girls were busy putting together potpourri bags with dried herbs harvested from the garden. 

But that’s where people have the wrong idea about 4-H, says Karen Sherman, whose daughter, Olivia, and son, Patrick, are both active members of the club. 

“I always tell people it’s not all about animals,” Sherman said. 

Besides gardening and animal husbandry — activities that take place in volunteers’ backyards or on nearby ranches — the Redwood 4-H club offers photography, cooking, fishing, scrapbooking and even line dancing. 

Club members also do community service and learn to become good public speakers. 

“It’s about leadership. It’s about learning to give back,” Sherman said. “The kids become good planners and goal setters."  

Still, Redwood 4-H hasn’t lost its agricultural roots — the county fair remains the year’s main event, where club members compete for the most perfect beet, and the meatiest, best cared-for pig. 

A century of inspiring young farmers and leaders 

4-H clubs started over 100 years ago as a way to spread new agricultural techniques from university laboratories and test plots to the American farming community. The name “4-H” club, with its cloverleaf insignia, came into being between 1910 and 1912, although youth agricultural clubs date back a decade earlier, with several prototypes in the rural Midwest, according to the official 4-H website.

Soon after, 4-H clubs were absorbed into the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s cooperative extension system, the department’s publicly funded outreach program. 

Today, 4-H clubs can be found across the nation, and globally, and are generally open to kids age 8 to 18. They’ve expanded their focus to address current issues such as renewable energy and healthy living. 

With these hot topics in their scope, plus a renewed interest in farming and food in the Bay Area, local 4-H clubs may be in the midst of a renaissance. 

Off to the fair

The Redwood 4-H club currently has about 100 members on paper, although only about three-fourths of them are active, according to club co-leader Butko. Many of those members are showing off their work at the Alameda County Fair. 

Tomiko, a budding photographer and soon-to-be fourth grader at Palomares Elementary School in Castro Valley, is showing six photographs and several pieces of art at the fair. She also entered a strawberry and parsley in the produce competitions, and will be offering samples of her homemade vinegar infused with limes, basil and mint, during one of the free-admission days for senior citizens. 

Many of the older kids are showing animals at the fair, and some are hoping for more than ribbons in exchange for their year’s worth of effort. The animal auction takes place on July 10, the last day of the fair. In the past, the auction has attracted some big bidders, like Safeway, said Shayne Rivers, one of the Redwood mothers. 

“It’s great for the kids because most of them actually get to keep that money,” Rivers said of the auction proceeds. “They can put it away for college, or put it towards next year’s animal.” 

I assumed some kids, especially the younger ones, might have trouble seeing their cuddly rabbits and sheep sent off to the slaughterhouse. I decided to test Rivers’s 9-year-old daughter, Naomi, who spent the year raising “meat” rabbits. 

“So, Naomi,” I said, “you’re taking rabbits to the fair, right?” She nodded. “Does it make you sa….” 

“Nope!” she quipped, cutting me off before I could finish my sentence. Then she turned and darted off to the pool. 

Rachel, 15, said she couldn’t wait to get rid of her unruly pig, Hamlet (emphasis on the “ham”) who, she said, “doesn’t listen to a thing.”  

Just in case I still had any doubts about whether there were vegetarians in the group, Rachel told me the name 4-H club president, Jessica, had given her pig: “Chocolate-covered Bacon.”