UC ANR produces a monthly feature story for its Web site that is shared with the news media. For October, the feature on 4-H service learning projects was picked up by a reporter in the Fresno Bee South Valley Bureau, with a focus on the two Tulare County clubs who received substantial grants in 2006.
Reporter Roni Miller interviewed 12-year-old Elbow Creek 4-H members Rylin Lindahl and Jordan Dunn, who used the money for an autumn festival for blind children.
"Jordan and I go to a lot of groups and talk to them and they usually give us money, and now some just send us money for the festival each year," Miller quoted Rylin said.
The article says the 4-Hers and their families run the event, with activities to stimulate the senses of touch, hearing and taste. That includes a hayride trip to the pumpkin patch where the blind children choose their own pumpkins.
"We put beepers next to the pumpkins so they can hear where they are. Then they have to feel which pumpkin they like. It's neat," Rylin told the Bee.
The second Tulare County service learning grant went to the Visalia 4-H Club, who received $2,500 that permitted the group to work hand in hand with Visalia's Department of Parks and Recreation on the "1000 Hands Playground." Club members then raised more than $3,000 in additional funds in order to build an American Indian tipi in one section of the community-built playground at Visalia's new Riverway Sports Park, the article said.
As a style aside, the Fresno Bee spelled tipi as "teepee." In writing our feature, we considered using that traditional spelling, but instead went with the spelling that was used by the 4-H club in its grant proposal. According to Wikipedia, the word "tipi" comes into English from the Lakota language word thípi. The online encyclopedia says the verb thí means "to dwell" and a pluralizing suffix pi makes it "they dwell."
