Ontario County 4-H Youth Practice Life Skills at Harvest Food Fest
The holiday season is a memorable time of year featuring food, family, and community. Ontario County 4-H’ers enjoy the annual Harvest Food Fest for many of the same reasons – a great time of preparing food, enjoying time with their 4-H family, and engaging in creativity and learning. The 2020 4-H Harvest Food Fest event took place on November 7th, and the emphasis was on giving youth a chance to practice cooking and presentation skills.
This year’s event followed strict COVID-19 safety measures. 4-H’ers rotated through the Cornell Cooperative Extension auditorium with three youth presenting every half hour. This gave plenty of time for youth to present to one of the three volunteer evaluators, conference with the assigned evaluator for questions and feedback, and gave educators time to sanitize in between groups.
Harvest Food Fest is an important event because it gives youth a space to practice and learn safe and effective food preparation practices as well as become more comfortable presenting in front of people. Another noteworthy aspect of this event is that youth are required to use at least one cup of local Finger Lakes grown product in their recipes, promoting awareness of local agriculture. Each youth left the event with a special cookbook containing a collection of the recipes that were prepared on that day, in addition to essential skills and fun memories.
The following youth took part in this year’s event: Isaiah Czadzeck, Hannah Czadzeck, Simon Czadzeck, Ezekiel Czadzeck, Wyatt Wadams, Shelby Miller, Everett Miller, Langdon Miller, Abby Korich, Mason Michaelsen, Mackenzie Michaelsen, Kacie Michaelsen, Kelsey Michaelsen, Isaac Wheeler, Amelia Santy, Lucas Santy, Rebecca Pare, Grant Pyra, Mercie Nicol, Declan McLaughlin, Kellan McLaughlin, Hazel McLaughlin, Emily Hay, and James Hay. Special awards were given to Isaiah Czadzeck, Hannah Czadzeck, Simon Czadzeck, Amelia Santy, and Everett Miller for outstanding exhibition.
We would also like to extend a special thank you to volunteer judges Cyndy Harnett, Lucy Schram, and Shana Jo Hilton, and volunteer teen leader Shelby Miller.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Ontario County 4-H is offering several in-person social distanced and virtual learning opportunities. Our 2020-2021 4-H year began on October 1st. If you are interested in enrolling as a member or volunteer or if you have questions about our program, please reach out to Sarah Wilhelm at sab423@cornell.edu or call 585-394-3977.
Cornell Cooperative Extension is a non-profit educational organization with a mission to extend new knowledge and research-based information in agriculture, family and consumers sciences from Cornell University to county residents. County residents with concerns or questions related to agriculture, horticulture, water quality, 4-H youth development, parenting or family financial management can call 585-394-3977 any time or visit our website at www.cceontario.org.
“Cornell Cooperative Extension provides equal program and employment opportunities.”