Earlier this spring, Kim Bearnes, Extension Educator sent out an all-county 4-H email introducing a new list of Disaster Preparedness exhibit classes. These classes were designed for inclusion in the “Safety” department section of local fair books.
As your 4-H youth begin preparing their summer exhibits, we encourage you to remind families and youth about these new Disaster Preparedness categories. This is a great opportunity for youth—especially those impacted by Nebraska’s recent severe weather events—to share their experiences, stories, and recommendations through their projects. These projects can also be included in Open class for both youth and adults.
These new exhibitor classes are part of a pilot initiative and are currently limited to county-level fairs. They are not yet eligible for the Nebraska State Fair. However, counties are encouraged to include them in both the 4-H and Open Class departments, where appropriate, to reach youth and adults alike.
We hope your county added these classes to the Safety Department in your fair book. If so, we’d love to see what 4-H and Open Class youth and adults create and the stories they tell! Photos of these exhibits are especially valuable as we promote 4-H and Extension’s role in supporting youth, families and communities with disaster education and safety resources.
For questions about this initiative, please reach out to Kim Bearnes at kbearnes1@unl.edu (Stanton County). You are also encouraged to send any photos of projects submitted by exhibitors and/or any other attachments to Kim or upload them using this Qualtrics form - https://ssp.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6hXZnHaqElDRQzk.
Thank you for supporting these efforts as we work together to provide opportunities to strengthen the resilience of Nebraskans.