PHILO — Strawberry green tea blends, the Cyrillic alphabet, borscht and the meaning of Ukraine’s yellow and blue flag — Philo fourth grader Kenzie Boas knows about it all.
She and other members of her village’s 4-H club learned about Ukraine when a high school exchange student visited. While he is back in Ukraine, the club has been sharing their knowledge.
“Who knows when it might not be a country anymore, so you better learn about it,” Boas said. “You never know what might happen.”
Boas and the other students gave a presentation about Ukraine in July at the Champaign County Fair. They won first place and are now heading to Springfield Sunday to compete in the Illinois State Fair.
Boas says she thinks about Ukrainian people all the time now and hopes the war with Russia will end soon.
County fairs are the highlight of the year for many children in 4-H clubs. They present projects they have been working on all year and compete to go to the state fair.
Boas’ sister, Aubrey Boas, was part of the presentation on Ukrainian culture. She also won an award for a display on babysitting, where she divided possible activities to do with children by age range.
Sawyer Gutierrez Baxter is an eighth grader also from Philo. He won the aerospace category in the Champaign County Fair and is now going to Springfield. He said 4-H is a chance “to use what you learn in school to do something fun.”
Gutierrez Baxter researched how the Wright brothers managed to create the first working airplane- from the lighter motor they used to find the perfect spot for the test flight. The eighth grader’s grandfather lives near that site in North Carolina and is a pilot himself, and an inspiration for the project.
Illinois 4-H says an independent study has found youngsters are twice as likely to participate in science, math and technology fields after being in a 4-H program. The Champaign County 4-H program is organized by University of Illinois Extension.