The numbers are already up for 4-H registration, at least in the anchor division of beef projects.
"We have 29 beef kids in the district this year. Crazy," said Angela Crowe, a former 4-H member and now one of the volunteer leaders, with kids of her own in the youth development program.
"We had 20 last year and that was the most in many years. Huge growth."
4-H is an international organization that fosters business sense, goal-setting, independent work and group work, and has a number of additional perks for youth like public speaking development, travel opportunities and scholarships.
Each participant in 4-H takes on a personal project (or more than one) from a menu of options.
Many of them are agricultural (but not all), due to the easily demonstrated business illustrations and the intrinsic one-year calendar cycles built into raising crops and livestock.
One of the anchor projects for the local 4-H program is raising beef.
Horse, swine, sheep, poultry, and many other divisions of livestock also have a strong place. So too does photography, small engines, gardening, outdoor living, and other non-animal options.
"Membership overall is growing but I don't have our final numbers for this year as sign up goes to March 31," said Crowe, and the deadline for animal projects is April 17.
"We have a new online sign up this year so there are a few glitches and we normally have numbers by now but with the new system they extended everything."
There are four 4-H clubs in the local area, each one arranged to service a different area of the city (but a participant can join whichever club suits them best): Hixon, Beaverly, Pineview and North West.
Each club offers different project options to participating youth.
Crowe hopes the local numbers grow so the Prince George-area youth can take the same advantage as neighbouring communities. Williams Lake, for example, has eight clubs; Vanderhoof has five.
"The B.C. 4-H website lists all clubs and projects that are available by region," she said.
Despite the registration deadline still ahead on the calendar, many of the beef projects were out together this past weekend, including the young cattle.
The spring calves were hauled to the Agriplex (alongside the Kin Centre complex and P.G. Equestrian Centre) where they were officially weighed on the 4-H association's livestock scale. It gives the participants raising these beef projects some baseline data to work with as they care for their creatures throughout the spring and summer, culminating in the grand finale, the B.C. Northern Exhibition (Aug. 17-20).
