Mar 21, 2019
Meet the 4-H Youth Changing the World One Community at a Time
By Ray Kerins, SVP, Corporate Affairs
It can be easy to get caught up with negative news stories and the challenges of day-to-day life. It happens to the best of us, even the optimists sometimes, but recently I had the great pleasure of participating in an event that reminded me there are amazing young people out there poised to solve some of the most complex challenges of our time and I’m lucky to have a role at Bayer that includes helping them.
The event was the 4-H Legacy Awards in Washington, D.C. where four exceptional teenagers were honored with Youth in Action awards for making a difference in their communities. I was simply blown away by the poise of these young people and how much they’d been able to accomplish — all before graduating high school. For our Science Matters partnership with 4-H, Bayer was also honored with the Grow True Leaders Corporate Leadership Award.
The Agriculture category winner, Addy Battel, recognized a need in her community at just 12 years old when her local grocery store in Cass City, Michigan closed. She worked with other 4-H’ers to create Meating the Need for Our Village. The program received grants and community support that helped bring high-quality protein to local food pantries. The program has provided 1,368 gallons of milk, 10,000 pounds of meat and 92 dozen eggs to families! I was proud that Bayer sponsored this pillar of the awards.
Award winner in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) category Clyde Van Dyke, was told as a child that he probably wouldn’t graduate high school, but after attending the 4-H Tech Wizards after school program he defied the naysayers. In addition to learning communication and leadership skills Clyde developed geospatial maps to visualize drug overdose deaths and factors that may contribute to them.
Mason McClintock, winner in the Civic Engagement category from Alma, Georgia, started a program called the Alma Entrepreneur Tour that teaches kids business principles and connects them with local business owners to help them understand more about what their future career options are.
Healthy Living award winner, Elisabeth Watkins, from California, learned about nutrition and the impact of diet on health through her participation in 4-H. She now mentors others and has a platform called Farm Girl Chef where she advocates for agriculture and healthy farm-to-table cooking.
Since Bayer announced our partnership with the National 4-H Council in 2017, employees have been out in communities where we live and work volunteering and mentoring 4-H’ers like the exceptional youth I talked about. The partnership is a perfect marriage really. We share the same goals — to equip students with a better understanding of science and agriculture. We, and society as a whole, need their future ideas and innovations to solve complex challenges. And, that’s why we launched Science Matters.
Scientists who focus on plants, food and water, among other areas, are in demand as growers face a growing population, less available farmland, climate change and evolving pests and diseases, to name just a few. As I looked in the audience at the 4-H Legacy Awards I saw the talent that will fill those future roles and I look forward to staying involved in helping them get there.
