Cypress Heart and Hands – Faith Absher, Reporter
Do you know how to set a place setting? For our meeting on January 14, we learned how to do place settings for the Favorite Foods Contests.  Our members enjoyed this activity and thought it was neat. We also heard from the nursing home residents we adopted for Christmas. They loved the gifts, and it made us happy that they liked the gifts.

Last month we had some fun club, county, and state events, but not all members attended them.  Our club members did many holiday community service projects. These holiday projects were good deeds and helped us to feel joyful. These are some of the county and state events that happened. The Grinch-themed pj party and the state ice skate event.  A couple of our members were able to participate in these, and enjoyed making new friends at these events.

Our club has a lot of exciting activities planned for the rest of the year.  This includes chemo/care bags and a Food Bank of Delaware food drive. Some upcoming county and state events that our members are excited about are the Winter Fun Day, Favorite Foods Contest, State Camp, and Environmental Camp. The members look forward to these events because they are all fun and exciting.  At these events, we can complete different activities and spend time with our 4-H friends.

That is the end of December and the beginning of January. We all enjoy the 4-H meetings and 4-H because we like to help others. We hope you have a wonderful rest of January.

Cypress Heart and Hands members practicing place settings

Wild Clovers Outdoor Club
The Wild Clovers had a super exciting meeting in January! One of our very own members, Faith Absher, led our meeting and presented on the Southern Ocean. She put together a PowerPoint presentation, instructed everyone how to create their own squid craft, and then everyone got to make their own “krill” trail mix. We are so proud of Faith for presenting and she did a fabulous job doing so! Our members seemed to have a great time as well!

 Harbor Lights 4-H Club – Phillip Cunningham, Reporter
The Harbor Lights 4H club had a great meeting in December. The first thing we did was play duck duck goose with a Christmas twist. You had to use Christmas words when going around the circle. Next, we played a game where you put a cup between two people. Then someone called out head, knees, or other body parts. You had to touch what they yelled out. If they said cup, you had to grab the cup before the other person. It was a lot of fun! Then we had our business meeting and Christmas snacks. Last, we did our Christmas gift exchange. Everyone had to make homemade gifts. At our next meeting, we will choose our play and practice public speaking.

Lord Baltimore Helping Hands – January 2025
We began our meeting with our pledges.  There wasn’t much Old Business to cover since our last meeting, so Ruby again spoke of the upcoming contests and events.  We learned that several members had signed up for some of the upcoming events.

Miss Kathy explained there was no newsletter for Jan, because it had been combined with Dec. She also offered that she or Ruby would be willing to help anyone interested in doing the Favorite foods contest with their registration form.

Then, Miranda gave a very informational demonstration with her American Girl doll horse on how to saddle a horse, why a blanket is used under the saddle, and then the proper way to groom a horse – where and how to stand around the horse and at each stage of the grooming.  She did an awesome job of answering the questions some of our members posed to her.  Well done, Miranda!

Miss Kathy talked about mindfulness and some strategies for controlling stress.  Miss Ashley then had several fun activities to help with speaking in front of others – an improv activity with aliens speaking and human interpreters (that was funny!); a communication activity – giving explicit directions for making a PBJ (and then eating it, of course!); an activity to help us be better listeners and rememberers – each person had to make a sound (no real words) after repeating the sounds in order from before us – that was challenging!  Then Miss Ashley talked to us about the language computers use – binary code.  We used binary code to make Initial bracelets using beads and following Binary Code.  Lastly, she had us look at photos and say whether we thought they were good or not, and why.  She explained about focus on the main subject of the picture, background clutter and lighting.  That was fun and we had lots of discussion on all those topics. Our next meeting is Sun., Feb 9 @ 2:00.

Making Binary Initial bracelets and key chains with beads

Miranda demonstrates how to groom a horse

Lord Baltimore Helping Hands – December 2024
Our December meeting was also our Christmas Party.  We began with our pledges, and then Anthony demonstrated how to make Cornbread Muffins from scratch.  He walked us through the steps of measuring the dry and the wet ingredients, and how to mix them.  He shared the recipe, as well as some “tweaks” he had found to be useful. He also answered some questions we had as he walked around the group showing the consistency of the batter before putting it by tablespoons into the cupcake liners.  As the muffins baked. We went into another room and continued our business meeting.

Ruby discussed the Old Business – the Christmas Parade in Selbyville, the ringing of bells and caroling for the Salvation Army, and the Grinch PJ Party.  She asked Miranda and Arya to tell about their experiences at the PJ Party, and Ruby and Arya spoke about the cold but fun Christmas Parade.  Everyone talked about the ringing of the bells and how much fun they had – and how cold it was!  Ruby made sure everyone knew about the upcoming events and where to find it in the newsletter.  Since we have several newbies, she explained about the events as well.

Miss Kathy then shared the thank you from the school of our adopted family and from the senior group collecting the Stockings for Soldiers goodies.  She also explained that Delaware Hospice was very grateful for our decorated tree and wreath and explained they were destined for a youth group home.  Then it was time for some snacks and our Christmas Party!

We enjoyed snacks everyone contributed, as well as the yummy corn bread muffins Anthony had made. (We donated leftover snacks to the Shepherd’s Office the next day.)  Then the real fun began!  Ruby and her mom had scratch off tickets that corresponded to a gift bag with matching tag.  That was a fun surprise! Then we exchanged our “family” gifts, by rolling die.  Miss Ashley and Miss Kathy had some fun games for us to try our hands at – sliding a cookie from our forehead to our mouth without using our hands, using a straw to slide a Christmas card to the edge (but not over!) the table edge and using 2 pencils to stack up cups.  Lots of fun! Our next meeting will be Sun., Jan 12 @ 2:00.