4-H Fundraiser Time!
And I have been absent! Of course, this time last year I was a bit absent as I was out in Banff and Glacier National Parks, so maybe it is a late June thing! The last few days have been a cornucopia of events. We cooked a five course Chinese dinner for our friends in Sandpoint and spent the evening immersed in the world of VR, the following day was a blur of meeting up with old friends and cooking again, and yesterday was spent in the blistering sun in downtown Coeur d'Alene, Idaho conducting the subject of today's post, a 4-H fundraiser car wash.
Earlier this year, the swine and my beef group decided to join forces and fundraise together. Our money accumulating goal was to earn enough dough to buy a portable livestock scale that we could all use to keep track of our market animal's weight gain for fair. It's really hard to judge an animal's weight gain when you look at it every day, and every creature that you take to fair to show as a market animal has weight requirements to show. A scale is a really handy thing to have around, for it takes the guess work out of just how well your feeding program is working.
That said, livestock scales are incredibly expensive, so that's why we decided earlier this year to work together to try to earn one. One of my beeflings works in the Napa store in CDA, so he got permission from his boss to let us have a car wash at that auto-part repository, and the rest is sunburn and wet clothes history!
Yesterday morning we arrived at the Napa and proceeded to set up all the proper car wash accoutrements. There were hoses, buckets, scrub brushes, sponges, and towels galore! Before long we had the wash station humming, and there were parent smiles a plenty as the kids warmed up their car washing muscles by cleaning their family's cars first, just to get the party started. A big Bluetooth speaker appeared and the requisite for 4-H gatherings country music began blaring across the parking lot. A couple of our kids are cheerleaders and they volunteered for the first round of standing on the sidewalk with the 4-H car wash here signs. Lots of honking and hollering ensued.
Before long we had a steady stream of soon to be gleaming vehicles in the parking lot, all getting scrubbed, hosed and dried to perfection. The organizers (hat tip) of the event made it donation only and also set up a table full of baked goods to sell and give to the people getting their cars cleaned, so instead of waiting in their cars or standing awkwardly, our customers were given Rice Krispie treats and brownies and regaled with conversation. We even had camp chairs in the shade for them to sit it!
Three hours and a good bit of drenching later we had made a few hundred dollars and our whole group was all smiles. Our scale costs around $700 for a good one that works for both pigs and steers, so we were all pretty elated to earn half of what we need with just one event! Well, to be honest we were also in a pretty good mood because one of the kids doused my husband with a bottle of ice cold water and nothing is funnier than an irritated Hawaiian!
And on that note, I have to say I was pretty impressed with the kids and how they all conducted themselves. No one lazed around, they all took turns standing in the sun holding the car wash signs, and every car was washed to sparkling clean perfection. One very blunt and generous woman even commented,
In my experience, kids that take on 4-H projects are super dedicated and hard working, I am constantly impressed by their work ethic and consideration towards others. I am in no way saying they are better than or different than other kids in some superior way (see water bottle dumpage mention above;), rather I am just honored to get to be a part of a group of young people that works towards goals and accomplishes them, all while being an asset to their community!
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