This is Behind the Clover, Real 4-H Talk with Real 4-H Pros. A look at 4-H from the perspectives of 4-H professionals from Illinois and beyond with your hosts, Henry Craft, Amy Henschen, and Ryan Littlejohn.
Amy Henschen: 00:35Welcome to another episode of Behind the Clover. I'm Amy, and I'm here with my co-hosts, Henry and Ryan. We're back for more fun and illuminating conversations with Illinois 4-H staff. Today, we're kicking off a new series on youth leadership with Sara Seyfert, an extension program coordinator from Ford and Iroquois County. We'll introduce you to her more formally in a bit.
Amy Henschen: 00:55But first, we'll invite her to participate in our roundtable check-in, which kicks off now. So what's going on in your lives right now, folks? Henry, let's start with you.
Henry Craft: 01:04I am two weeks off vacation, folks. So this is event number two for a Monday. That's exciting. But, yeah, things are going well. The holidays were good.
Henry Craft: 01:15Got to spend some time in Wisconsin with my in laws, so that that drive is fun. But, yeah, I had a bit of a a holiday miracle. My my vehicle, that I I don't know if I shared this on a podcast recently, but I hit a deer going about 30 miles an hour and completely destroyed my bumper, and the thing didn't even it just got up and ran away, like, whatever. But I was stuck. Anyway, so all that to say, holiday miracle. I got my car back before I had to drive a rental to Wisconsin again, so that was super fun.
Henry Craft: 01:53Yeah. And, gosh, you know what? You come back to work after two weeks and you got programs that week, you're you're hitting the ground running. So I am actively working on writing, doing some program prep for Friday with a homeschool cooking 101 program that I have been doing, and we're having a blast. We're gonna do a kitchen crime scene for food safety, this week.
Henry Craft: 02:24So we'll do some fun stuff. I get I'm excited to buy some caution tape and, mess a kitchen up. So it's gonna be a blast. But, yeah, that's me.
Amy Henschen: 02:36Okay. You actually buy you, like, are gonna make an actual crime scene? Because there's a show there is a show called Crime Scene Kitchen, which my sister the two types of shows she watches are true crime and cooking shows. So this is, like, when we found this, it was like, oh my gosh. Your circles are overlapping.
Amy Henschen: 02:54And I thought this is ridiculous, but it's so addicting. So I love that you're going all in on this, and there's gonna be crime tape.
Henry Craft: 03:02Yeah. I had to Google that today because I had no idea where you just buy crime scene tape. It's not crime scene tape, it's caution tape. But, gonna go for that and, yeah. It's apparently, it's a a common item to purchase.
Henry Craft: 03:18So
Amy Henschen: 03:19Well, I can't wait to see what other things you come up for to use that caution tape on. I'm sure you'll come up with some stuff.
Henry Craft: 03:26Oh, it'll happen.
Amy Henschen: 03:27I love it. Ryan
Ryan Littlejohn: 03:28I use it.
Amy Henschen: 03:29What are you oh, go ahead.
Ryan Littlejohn: 03:31I use the caution tape all the time in my job, believe it or not. I use it at fair, and I will, like, block people off from going places. And when I do, like, big programs, like my conservation days, I'll use it there to keep kids out of areas we don't need. Like, caution tape is a magical thing in extension. And if you don't have a roll, go to Walmart and buy a roll.
Sara Seyfert: 03:53We actually our youngest turned one in early June of twenty twenty, so there was not a big one year old birthday party. We had, a cute photo shoot, and it involved lots of caution tape and just this cute little sign that said quarantined. I was like, we did it. We did it. Here's a cupcake.
Henry Craft: 04:14Then Yeah. Caution tape. Perfect. Who knew it was so versatile? I mean, that's a great that's a great piece of equipment, the caution tape.
Amy Henschen: 04:23And now that you're saying those right, I have used it for shooting sports, so I will I'm like, wait. I have used this for work, but never, like, in a fun way, if that makes sense. So, well, Ryan, tell us what you've been up to.
Ryan Littlejohn: 04:34It is currently 27 degrees down here in Southern Illinois. That is unusual, but I'm enjoying it. I'm living life, getting my fair book ready because it's that time of year. And when you're listening to this podcast, you're probably have yours done or you are working on yours. Just know I sympathize with you.
Ryan Littlejohn: 05:00It's a lovely thing, but this just means that fair is coming our way. And it's fun and exciting to look forward to, but at the same time, it's only January. And I just can't I can't wrap my head around that. That's what's going on in my life. I'm not ready for it, especially when I'm gonna be gone.
Ryan Littlejohn: 05:17So it's it's gonna be a new experience for me this year.
Amy Henschen: 05:21Well, we're super excited for you, one, to have snow days because, like, I don't know how many Southern Illinois ever gets. But, like, I love that you're like, oh my gosh. It's 27. Oh, please. Northern Illinois, that's nothing.
Amy Henschen: 05:32We got this. Although it's a little icy here today, so I'm a little intimidated to be out on the roads. Hope you're surviving down there. Anyone who got caught in any of these fun snowstorms, hope you dug out okay. Sara, what's been going on with your life?
Sara Seyfert: 05:46So same. First day back after two weeks. And for whatever reason, I didn't get sick. Nobody in my family got sick the entire break. And this morning, I woke up with some kind of, like, sinus y thing.
Sara Seyfert: 06:00Like, this is awesome. Very excited about it. Youngest went back to preschool today, and the two bigs go back tomorrow. So we're gonna have, like, a real schedule again where our kids, you know, actually have a bedtime and a wake up time and really interesting, you know, fun things happening in our lives.
Amy Henschen: 06:20I'm sure that adjustment period's gonna go so smoothly. They love going from I get up whenever and I sleep whenever to, oh, I have to be up at this time now, and I have to go to bed at a certain time?
Sara Seyfert: 06:30Absolute nightmare with all my kids. They are just like, we do what we want. Mhmm. Honestly, they do. We're very free range parents here in Central Illinois.
Sara Seyfert: 06:40Very free range.
Amy Henschen: 06:42Well, gents, I tried to come back to the office on Thursday last week. And Friday, I'm working from home, just chugging along, and then I just hear a giant scream from inside my home. And my mother who is staying with me, who is an older lovely lady, has fallen and has broken her leg in my apartment, my house. And I'm so I just obviously dropped everything I was doing in the middle of the work day and took her to the ER. So she was supposed to fly home, yesterday, but she's in a giant cast and not super mobile.
Amy Henschen: 07:19So we're trying to figure out what we do for that. So I haven't I've work focusing on work.
Sara Seyfert: 07:26It's been a little bit
Amy Henschen: 07:27of a struggle since this incident. I've been doing work from her hotel room. I'm happy to be back at the office and see some other humans today. But yeah. So we're doing a lot of phone calls with the insurance companies and doctors.
Amy Henschen: 07:41I'm trying to get on schedules, and I've listened to so much hold music that I'm ready to punch things. But yeah. So that's been fun, but all things considered, she's okay. She's okay. It's just gonna take her a while to be, like, a hundred percent .
Amy Henschen: 07:57And we're we're gonna get there, though. So happy to have the flexibility of this job that I have an understanding boss and a lot of sick time to be using to take her to appointments and stuff. So thank thank thank goodness, for all of that. I know not everyone has those, that safety nets, and, like, rather she have fallen here when she has me and my sister than at home when she's kinda by herself. So, but, yeah, we're gonna get there.
Amy Henschen: 08:23But it's been it's been a couple days, guys, that I'm, like, a little bit, like, whoo. So if I'm a little spacey today, I hope you understand.
Henry Craft: 08:30I'd ask you all sorts of questions, but getting your mother's medical information on a podcast is probably not, the we're gonna take that one offline. Okay, Amy? Alright. So, anyway, I'm sorry that you're dealing with that and that your mother, first and foremost, that she broke her leg. That's sad, and that's a lot.
Henry Craft: 08:50So thoughts with you, for sure.
Amy Henschen: 08:52She's a she's a tough cookie, though. She's like
Henry Craft: 08:55Oh, I know.
Amy Henschen: 08:55She's wheeling herself around in the wheelchair we rented. She's, like, do trying to do everything herself. There's still a few things. Like, she can't manage to get the casted leg into the bed. That part, she hasn't figured out yet.
Amy Henschen: 09:08So we're we're working on it. But, all things to considered, like, if you're gonna break a bone in your leg, the one that's not the one that is the weight bearing one is the one to break. So good job, mom. Yeah. So we're we're trying to find the positives.
Ryan Littlejohn: 09:22So today, we're gonna talk about favorites, and I can tell you snow is not my favorite thing. But if it is a snowy day like today, we wanna know, Sara, what is your favorite book, and why is it your favorite? And we're gonna open it up as our roundtable topic, but what is your just go to favorite book and why?
Sara Seyfert: 09:44I think it has to be Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. And here's why. So, my dad was my high school English teacher, my senior teacher. And so, yeah, tell me you came from a small high school without telling me you came from a small high school.
Sara Seyfert: 10:00There was one senior English teacher. And so dad made me start reading - didn't make - encouraged me to start reading his senior reading list as a sophomore. And so I read Pillars of the Earth. It was on there, and I feel like that just really opened the door to my love of, like, historical fiction on any way, shape, or form.
Sara Seyfert: 10:25So, I mean, it give me a good historical saga. If it can span generations and all these different, world events, I wanna read it.
Amy Henschen: 10:37Okay. Love me love me some Pillars of the Earth. And, like, read that in Paraguay when I was in the Peace Corps and had a lot of free time And then, like, devoured every single other book that man has written. Ken Follett, if anyone is, is looking to get get read. But it's super cool because it follows, like, the building of this cathedral and then all these people, and and it takes, like, a bazillion years to make cathedral.
Amy Henschen: 11:00So you follow people over a really long span of time and generations. It's so cool. Love that you love that. My favorite book is also historic fiction. I, like, love fiction that's set I I guess, I'm like I don't know.
Amy Henschen: 11:12I like fiction not set now. So I like science fiction, like fantasy, and I like historic fiction. That's, like, what I wanna read. I don't wanna read a book set now. That's not fun.
Amy Henschen: 11:22So mine is, Sombra del Viento, Shadow of the Wind. It's a Spanish book. It's set, like, right after the Spanish Civil War in Spain, and it has flashbacks to the Spanish Civil War. And it has, like, super interesting, and it follows this family. And then there's, like, two more books in the series, and, like, that that follows the next generation of the family, and it's, like, just super cool.
Amy Henschen: 11:41And, like, there's a cemetery of forgotten books in this book, and it is the most I'm, like, I need to be in this place exploring, like, a little crazy caverns full of books. And I'm, like, oh my gosh. This is my dream location. And it's just beautiful. I've only ever read it in Spanish, so I haven't read the English version, and it's beautiful in Spanish.
Amy Henschen: 12:00I hear the translation's really good. So Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafran. Love it. It's my favorite.
Henry Craft: 12:08I love that you're flexing. Like, I read that in Spanish entirely. I do love that flex. That was pretty great. Oh, yeah.
Henry Craft: 12:16I'm that fluent. Get it get it get on board, guys.
Amy Henschen: 12:19Okay. But seriously though, it was 100 the book cover. I was trying to, like I I got majored in Spanish in college for con one of my majors was Spanish. So, like, I'm at my little local library in Libertyville, Illinois, and I was, like, I should should read some more Spanish books to, like, keep the Spanish up. I'm tired of reading Harry Potter in Spanish, which was my normal thing to do.
Amy Henschen: 12:38And, like, I went to the bookstore and just looked at pictures, like, you know, like, I don't know how many I I picked books by their cover. I'm guilty. And the cover was, like, old school photograph of, like, a foggy street in Barcelona. And I was like, yeah. And it was, like, good graphic design.
Amy Henschen: 12:52So 100%, like, judged the book by its cover, but was, like, not disappointed.
Henry Craft: 12:57Nice. My favorite book. If we're talking fiction, I I mean, I'm gonna go throw it way back. My Side of the Mountain, anybody? You ever read that book?
Henry Craft: 13:08If I was thinking about that, like, that was the only book that I could get into when I was a kid in fiction, and there's a sequel apparently. But, all that to say, I am a nonfiction reader, so, I read a lot of of not self help books, but more like, you know, learn about, learn about, masculinity studies, those are the ones that I, had read of quite a few books on, so I don't know if I could pick one other than, you know, My Side of the Mountain is a fiction, so it's also historical fiction. My wife's very into historical fiction. So, Sara, your recommendation on Pillars of the Earth will be sent to actually, already sent. I did it while you were talking.
Henry Craft: 13:57So anyway, yeah. Books . There we go. That's my that's where I'm at.
Ryan Littlejohn: 14:03I am an Agatha Christie fan, and I love anything Agatha Christie. I fell in love with it in high school, and I gotta preface this. I hated reading growing up as a kid. Absolutely hated it. Despised it.
Ryan Littlejohn: 14:18My parents would sit me down at the table and make me read so I could, you know, pass school like I was supposed to. But that was we read Murder on the Orient Express in high school, and that got me hooked. And that was the only type of books I read from there out. I do read some, historical books. Like, one I'm reading right now is over here on my bookshelf, Abraham Lincoln.
Ryan Littlejohn: 14:45It's not a biography, but it's a historic it's talks about Abraham Lincoln's whole life time and the things that he went through. Another big one I'm reading, I I go chunks. I can't read the same thing and just finish a book. I gotta read chunks of things. So What's Next?
Ryan Littlejohn: 15:03It's a book about the West Wing. I know I've talked about it before, but it is very good. It talks about the story of how they created the show and got the actors and that whole process. It's amazing. I love it.
Sara Seyfert: 15:18You, you really you just read a chunk of a book, and then you switch books?
Ryan Littlejohn: 15:23I'll read, like, a chapter, and then I'll put it down. And then maybe the next night, I'll read another chapter of another book, and then I'll unless it's, like, something that really but I haven't had anything that's really caught me recently, and I need to finish it.
Amy Henschen: 15:36Okay. If you guys could see Sara's, like, puzzled face right now, it'd be great. I also what okay. I literally, as of yesterday, would have also been puzzled by Ryan's way of reading, but I just saw some random blog post about, like, if you're looking to get back into reading, but you're in a rut, they definitely suggested read three books at a time and just do, like, a little section of one, then do the next. Like, so I'm, like, I literally yesterday saw someone else who did this and was, like, what?
Amy Henschen: 16:02So your face, I made yesterday, so I'm not making it today. So, evidently, this is a strategy. If you're, like, running into, like, I I'm just not getting through this kind of thing on books. You just read a little, like, one chapter, then you switch to another book, read a chapter, and they switch another book, and then you loop back. I don't know.
Henry Craft: 16:21This could be my very undiagnosed ADHD. However, how do you remember what goes to what book? If I am reading even two books at a time, I'm like, shoot. Did that come out of this book or that book? I don't flipping remember.
Henry Craft: 16:39I don't know how you do it. I'm really interested.
Ryan Littlejohn: 16:42Sometimes I have to go back and just skim through to remind myself what's happening. But I've I've always been good about that. I could watch four different TV shows at the same time and know what's happening in each single one of them.
Henry Craft: 16:56Alright. So, folks, we promised that we would do a formal introduction to Sara, and here we go. Sara Seyfert hails from Milford, Illinois in Iroquois County. She joined the Illinois 4-H team in spring of twenty twenty two as the extension program coordinator covering Ford and Iroquois Counties. She was a 4-H member as a kid and served as a 4-H leader for her kids' club before joining the 4-H team.
Henry Craft: 17:25She is a proud mom of three kiddos who are all 4-H members of their own right. Welcome, Sara. Thank you so much for being with us today.
Sara Seyfert: 17:36Well, hello.
Henry Craft: 17:38So, Sara, we want to know from you because we did a little introduction for you, but we wanna know a little bit more about yourself and how you got started working with 4-H and Extension. Would you mind sharing with us?
Sara Seyfert: 17:51I would. I hope you're ready for the long and winding road that brought me to Extension. It's
Henry Craft: 17:56Such a good song.
Sara Seyfert: 17:58It is. Amy knows this story, and so it's kind of funny. I actually went to culinary school right after high school. So in the fall of 2003, I was in New Hampshire at a Le Cordon Bleu school. So I'm a French trained chef.
Sara Seyfert: 18:16I stayed on the East Coast for four, five years and did, high end seafood there. I worked in Newport, Rhode Island. So, you know, if you need to see where Jackie and John Kennedy got married, I can point you down the road. But then, you know, some life changes happened, and I came back to Illinois where I was from and started working in health care, which sounds insane. But I was actually the director of food services for, nursing homes and at a local hospital and did that for about ten years between a couple of facilities.
Sara Seyfert: 18:54Loved it. Loved the residents. Loved the families. Loved I mean, I think you have to be a certain kind of person to work in kitchens, and you have to be able to go with the flow and just have some level of insanity and ridiculousness, like, in your center, and so that worked really well for me. For those of you who have done anything with me in Extension, you know, there's just a little bit of ridiculousness and, to be fair, more than a little bit of insanity.
Sara Seyfert: 19:25But some life changes happened, and I ended up coming back to our family farm with my husband. So for four years, I was a farmhand slash substitute teacher slash volleyball coach for our local school. And then our, our position in Ford Iroquois opened up, and I was a 4-H leader at that point. Loved it. I mean, I've been in 4-H since I was eight.
Sara Seyfert: 19:54And are I I applied for it. I'm like, what's the worst that happens? They tell me no. Okay. Or I get this job and now everyone has to deal with me.
Sara Seyfert: 20:05So we'll we'll just go from there. So I applied for the job and, you know, for me, it was all about, I joked about this. The first year that I was with Extension, I said should be the year of the volunteer because it's great to do all kinds of things for the kids. But if you don't have the volunteers to buy into it and willing to meet the mission with you, you there's only so much you can do as one person for the kids. And then year two was the year of the parent.
Sara Seyfert: 20:35Because, again, you know, if you got great volunteers and great kids and you're doing all these things, that's awesome. But if there's no continuity after they leave your program or your event, what what's next for that? So it's been a lot of work to make sure that the experiences that I had, were as good as what I had or even better. So that had kind of been my journey into 4-H and Extension.
Amy Henschen: 21:03We love that. And you are you have such a great team in your unit, and you guys work so well together, and I just love seeing it. And I think you've brought a lot of awesome energy to that team, which I appreciate. So but you do a lot of work, and you have three kids. So, like, how do you decompress from this?
Amy Henschen: 21:20How do you unwind from work? Do you have anything, or are you like, nope. I'm just a mom. That's what I get to be. Yeah.
Amy Henschen: 21:27Do you have some passions or hobbies that take up your time?
Sara Seyfert: 21:30I do. And so this is ridiculous. You know, I pledge my health to better living for my club, my community, and my country, and my world. Right? No.
Sara Seyfert: 21:40I'm just super involved in our community. I am the president of the Bearcat Boosters, which is our booster club for our local high school where my kiddo goes. I started that when she was in kindergarten, though. I started working with the boosters when she was in kindergarten, so my oldest. And that being said, I had siblings who were still in high school, so I was helping out.
Sara Seyfert: 22:05You know, we go to a lot of athletic events. The our oldest is a three sport athlete. Yeah. She plays volleyball. She cheers.
Sara Seyfert: 22:15She's a softball player. The two boys are they're five and nine. They are on the swim team. We'll have t ball and baseball this summer. So really everything just kinda revolves around athletics and anything, you know, that the that the kiddos are doing.
Sara Seyfert: 22:33But if I get a minute away from them, I I read a book.
Amy Henschen: 22:38Love it. Have you invested okay. So I always wonder when parents are like, I have to go to 70,000 games. Have you invested in, like, the most comfortable chair or, like, bleacher cushion? Or, like, what's the tip for the parent who's just has their kids starting to sign up for this stuff?
Amy Henschen: 22:54Like, what should they do if they're gonna be sitting on hard bleachers for years of their life? They're always like, I can't do this.
Sara Seyfert: 23:02I'm a lot. So my recommendation for outdoor sports is invest in a wide, lawn chair, like a really good folding chair that is wider because you're gonna be shifting a lot because you sit there for a thousand innings in any in level. It's it feels like six six years you're sitting at one game. In gyms, though, and at football games, I don't know how to explain it sort of you kinda just have to see me in action. I really, really love high school football, and I'm sure one of my sons won't play high school football.
Sara Seyfert: 23:44And I'll be devastated, but I'll have to, you know, be cool about it. Like, I'm the big sister who was at the state championship football game, like, screaming and cheering and then insane again. But so for bleachers, you know, I just say take a sweatshirt or something to sit on because if you're really into the game, you'll be standing up a lot anyway.
Ryan Littlejohn: 24:08I will say the best decision I ever made, I don't have a kid that plays sports, but I hate sitting on metal chairs during the fair during my shows. I went and bought one of those rocker lawn chairs, the wide one. Best decision of my life. I got to sit there, keep my book. I was relaxed.
Ryan Littlejohn: 24:28I was comfortable.
Henry Craft: 24:30I mean, fair caution out there, though, because if you're leaning back a little too hard because I'm a chronic lean backer. You know? So, you could fall or feel like you're gonna fall. That's not that's not a lie. So, anyway but I also have one of those.
Henry Craft: 24:46It's I I would recommend 10 out of 10.
Ryan Littlejohn: 24:50So, Sara, you have a background in the kitchen, and we heard all about your wonderful experiences on the East Coast, which I wanna learn more about one day. But if you were a food or a dish, what food would you be and why?
Sara Seyfert: 25:06It's gotta be pizza. And it's it's the most versatile, and it is, you know, it's celebratory. It's comforting when you're sad or not. It's just there. It's portable.
Sara Seyfert: 25:21You can make it nice, or it can just be the fastest thing ever on a pizzazz when you are going from, you know, three different directions from work to the game, to the next game, to the 8PM game, you know, all the nonsense. And, honestly, there's just a lot of options. You know, we're not just talking, like, one thing or another. You know? There's lots of options for pizza.
Sara Seyfert: 25:45That's that's my jam. I I'd be pizza.
Ryan Littlejohn: 25:48Are you a pineapple on pizza person? We had this we talked about this a while back on the podcast, but this is a great time to bring it back.
Sara Seyfert: 25:58I do not discriminate when it comes to pizza. I just don't. So if you were to put some pineapple and a really good ham on a pizza, I would definitely eat it.
Amy Henschen: 26:12But I think that there's a
Sara Seyfert: 26:13time and place for it. You know? Just like I'm not gonna eat breakfast pizza at night. That's a lie. I'd eat breakfast pizza anytime.
Sara Seyfert: 26:21I gotta be honest, guys. I just really like pizza, so I don't discriminate. I'll I'll eat just about anything on a topping. If you you know, circular, squares, that's fine too. I don't even care how you cut it.
Sara Seyfert: 26:34I'll eat it.
Henry Craft: 26:36Sarah, we're gonna switch gears slightly, and we wanna know what is your favorite story or experience from your time working here with us in Extension and 4-H ?
Sara Seyfert: 26:51So there are so many cool things that have happened, but I and I know everybody talks about this in Illinois that their counties have the coolest kids. I I'm not saying I would fight someone over that, but I am saying I would bring receipts to explain why my children really are the coolest kids in both counties. But the kids are so amazing. So the two things that really stick out to me, I have two. I I couldn't choose.
Sara Seyfert: 27:24So we do a thing called Cloverbud Camp. It's for all of our little best friends. And this past year, we did dog obedience for Cloverbuds. And so everybody knows, you know, you can't have live animals in Cloverbuds. It's an insurance issue.
Sara Seyfert: 27:40And come on. There's some five year olds who should not be around live animals, or maybe live animals shouldn't be around some five year olds. You know? So we actually had a sponsor who so we were able to purchase these Melissa and Doug, Jack Russell terriers. So they're, like, 15 inches tall.
Sara Seyfert: 28:03They're adorable. And we have little leashes and collars, and our dog obedience leaders were so amazing. They came in, and they worked with all the littles to teach them how to the different commands that you learn in dog obedience. And so you just see this little circle of seven to eight, five to seven year olds walking around pulling these little stuffed dogs. It was the cutest thing ever, and they were so into it.
Sara Seyfert: 28:32And I just I absolutely loved it. So that's probably in the top two. And the other really cool experience was just just talking in general about how cool how cool my kids are. They're just cool. I watched a young lady.
Sara Seyfert: 28:47It was her last year 4-H . She won grand champion steer, and then two days later turned around and won grand champion clothing. So it was just a really cool mix. You know? Like, this is the kid who I watched her play summer softball, so she's pitching in these hot tournaments all summer long.
Sara Seyfert: 29:08And at the same time, you know she's the kid who got up at six in the morning to wash her steer, and then she's hopping back in the house to sew jeans, and they were incredible jeans. So I just think it really goes back to how I just have really cool kids, man. So I that's the best part of my job, these cool kids. Alright, y'all. As we mentioned at the top of the show, we're starting a new series today, and that is, like, a series of episodes on the topic of youth leadership, which we think is something that's really important to all of our work. So, Sara, we brought you here because you have a really unique program in your counties called Emerging Leaders that I think you started. Can you tell us a little bit about that program and, like, how it came to be and what sorts of experiences, it provides to the kids who participate in it?
Sara Seyfert: 29:56Yeah. So I have the 17 year old that lives with me. She she has a lot of opinions, and she has a lot of busy schedule times. So, one of the things that the leaders had talked to me about, our volunteers, you know, in the year of the leader was or the year of the volunteer was how do we bring federation back?
Sara Seyfert: 30:16And what's it was kind of a logistical issue in our two counties because we're a dual county. And while our office is right in the center of it, from the furthest point of one county just to the office is close to an hour, and that goes both ways. So in order to have, you know, a federation meeting, you're talking about teenagers either needing a ride or driving themselves, you know, up up to an hour one way. And so it just logistically was a little bit harder, and there's a ton of small schools. You know, we have nine or 10 school districts between the two counties, and I think all of them I think we have, like, one three a school, and everybody else is, like, two a or one a.
Sara Seyfert: 31:05So, you know, a lot of small schools. So when that happens, you have a ton of everybody has to play everything so that that one kid can play basketball. All of her friends play basketball, and then she'll play volleyball so they can all play volleyball, you know, that kind of thing. So just figuring out scheduling for kids was really hard. And so I was talking to said 17 year old that lives with me.
Sara Seyfert: 31:28And I said, would you do Federation? And her God bless her. Her reply was, what is in it for me? I said, what do you mean? She said, what do I get out of it?
Sara Seyfert: 31:42Because if you're talking about service, I'm already doing that with my 4-H club and student council or national honor society or FFA. We already do those things. She goes, I'm already doing service stuff. If you're talking about, leadership opportunities, I have some of that too. So what else what else can you bring to the table that I'm not getting somewhere else?
Sara Seyfert: 32:07And while it hurt my pride a little, to be fair, I mean, it it's a valid question. Right? Like, our kids these days, especially our teenagers, are so busy, so busy. So I thought about that. That was kind of at the beginning.
Sara Seyfert: 32:25You know, just talking about bringing federation back. And then I thought about how we do a lot of workshops in our counties, programming workshops, and I am only one person, and you need help. So it kinda turned into, okay. What about this? What if you teenagers who would be in ambassadors or federation would come and do this leadership program?
Sara Seyfert: 32:51And here's the deal. It'll be a little bit more reciprocal. You're helping me. We're giving you opportunities for leadership, for service, that kind of thing. But on top of that, we're gonna keep track of all the hours you put in, and then we're gonna sign off on community service hours for you that you can use for that state or chapter degree or for your national honor society applications.
Sara Seyfert: 33:14We're going to make sure you get letters of recommendation that has, you know, the U of I letterhead because that carries some weight. And we're gonna make sure that you have other opportunities in soft skills. So we're gonna make sure you know how to write a resume, how to have a job interview where you don't feel awkward. That's hard for a teenager. And we're going to see if we can set you up with some community members too that would be able to mentor you if you're thinking about going to different areas.
Sara Seyfert: 33:47You know? So if you want to go into welding and that's a 4-H project and you're thinking, well, could I do this as an adult? We're gonna find you somebody who is a professional welder, and you can talk to them and ask them questions and get some mentorship there. And when we kind of brought that idea to the not just the leaders, but to the kids, they were kind of excited about that. And they've now it went from Sara does the workshops and they help out to they're actually doing all the workshops.
Sara Seyfert: 34:20I'm just there to supervise. I mean, we had a natural resources workshop where the kiddos asked me to bring in a professional. So, we had a natural a master naturalist come in and give a cool presentation. And then the emerging leader talked about how to do the project in the natural resources world. And so the kids left with an idea of how to do it.
Sara Seyfert: 34:45We taught we had a photography workshop, and it was a photography three emerging leader talking about how to do photography one. You know, what to look for in the book, what to what not to do. That was my favorite slide. She said, don't make these mistakes. And her name was in there too, and it was super cute.
Sara Seyfert: 35:03And, you know, so, really, it was just how do we give more opportunities to the kids that are here, but how do we also make sure that they want the opportunities we're offering?
Ryan Littlejohn: 35:15Thanks for joining us for this episode of Behind the Clover. Join us next time as we continue our conversation with Sarah about youth leadership.
Amy Henschen: 35:24Listeners, we need you. Please take a few minutes today to fill out our quick listener survey to help us keep making behind the clover better. To take the survey, visit go.illinois.edu/btcsurvey. So once again, the b t c stands for behind the clover. Go.illinois.eu/btcsurvey.
Amy Henschen: 35:48Thanks.