Travis County Commssioners Court
May 27, 2003
The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.
Item 33
33. Receive update on 4-h capital program. We have several special guests here today.
>> good morning, judge.
>> good morning, steven.
>> before we do the general update, I just want to put this program in context. Back in 1997, the Commissioners court passed a package called a juvenile crime prevention package. And in that package we had resources made available for neighborhood conference committee, our healthy families program, an additional investment in summer youth and of course our 4 h capital urban development program. I just want to say that all of those programs that were in that package have actually been showing some tremendous outcomes. Yesterday, I sent you an e-mail to give you an update on some of the impacts over the last couple of years of healthy families, but today as we promised, we would do on an annual basis, we are going to give you an overview of -- of the 4 h capital program. It's a program whose annual awards celebration I love to attend because the joy on not only the faces of the children, but also the parents of the children who are active in this program. Of course we have dynamic staff who is very enthusiastic about this program. We will give you an update there.
>> well, I don't want to take a lot of time. This is a program that for me is really a joy to work with. It's one that is easy to see the benefit, it's easy to talk to decision makers, such as yourself and the legislators about the benefits of this program and the -- the impact that it's making and -- in east Austin with youth that traditionally haven't been a part of 4 h's youth development program. This is one that we really enjoy working with and that again the support of the Commissioners court has been just tremendous and has helped to us grow this program. I think most of you know the staff that we have here probably, lili ann is our 4 h capital agent. She oversees the program and staff that works under her. James henderson coordinates the urban animal sciences program, I think one of our highlights with 4 h capital. I'm going to let them discuss a little bit more about the program, this morning. I'm sorry jo ann kugle, also one of our specialist who's works heavily with urban animal sciences as well as many of our after school subjects.
>> your name is --
>> [indiscernible]
>> folks will know that you were down here today [laughter]
>> I would just like to tell you that I appreciate so much your support. This is a program that's easy to be excited about because there's so much going on. We are a small program in the context of after-school and out of school time programs, certainly, but I think we are a small program that makes an enormous impact on the lives of children and their families. This year our urban animal science program was recognized nationally and james and noel rodriguez, who is not with us, attended the national urban conference in chicago where we made a presentation to -- to agent from around the state on this particular program. This is a unique program. It's certainly being looked at, we've had a lot of inquiries for replication. Also, we have been recognized this year for our ozone action team. Which was a program that was funded through e.p.a. We just finished that program up in December and it has received a state award for environmental sciences. In fact every year, capital has been recognized either nationally at the state or regionally for our programs and so we are really excited that we do have programs that are high quality and that people throughout the nation recognize our high quality programs. A program that jo ann is working on, is certainly getting a lot of recognition through the police department, she's working on a community service project called "my things." Two years ago we received a small grant from national 4 h, through the community support that program continued this year. The children that are involved in 4 h help others. We think that's so important. No matter what your circumstances are, you can help others and that's what this particular program does. We've worked with cole's department store who provided some funding for us, some of our volunteer groups who actually worked at cole's so that they would contribute funding towards this project. Jo ann and her group just went over and made their presentation to Austin police department's family violence unit because the community service project is designed to help youth in crisis. Actually some of our kids have participate understand that program, so we are real excited to be able to help youth. We have a grant this year. In fact we make an effort to -- to leverage our resources and this career we are working on three different small grants that we have been able to get through national 4 h. We have a program called health rocks, which teaches healthy decision making, that program is -- is being focused at junior high or middle school, paredes, those kids are going to langford and teaching elementary kids. Again this is children as partners, kid helping kid. We are doing a program called making track, which is a healthy lifestyles program at t.a. Brown focusing on youth being more active and being more active with their families, eating healthier, particularly cals jum, veg -- calcium, vegetables and fruits which are the nutrients that we find that children are most lacking or at least the food groups. That program finished up at -- at brown and then expanded to blanton where we had a very good little program. West nail virus was -- west nile virus was identified in Travis County, we put together a program to combat that or at least make children and their families more aware. We put together a program called going batty.
>> going batty?
>> yeah, kids are building bat houses, learning about mosquitoes, control the mosquitoes from building bat houses. You have to have a hook to get kid interested in learning. So we are also working with Texas parks and wildlife through a program called wild and wonderful. Currently we conduct about 30 programs a week, 17 different schools. We also conduct other kinds of enrichment classes within the daytime part of that. We bring in things that are very science focused or science based. White tailed deer, aerospace, solar energy, also the peaceful solution. That particular program was recognized two years ago nationally. It's a conflict resolution program. We are excited to be able to report to you that -- that through your -- your support, we did write a grant working with Travis County health and human services and we will be starting an americorps program starting in August, which will again allow us to learn our resources and to -- to leverage our resources and to be able to provide high quality programs to more students than we are serving at this particular time. We have two students here from blanton elementary school that would like to make a presentation to you. These students are kimberly and sergio, they go to school at blanton, in third grade. At this time we would like to present you a little thank you for all of your support that you have provided throughout the years.
>> would they like to say a few words first?
>> sergio, kimberly, do you want to talk?
>> it's a great support, 4 h, made us do more things like -- like [indiscernible] or other stuff.
>> great.
>> all right. -- sergio?
>> I like 4 h because I have fun all the time.
>> that's good. [laughter]
>> great.
>> okay.
>> thank you very much.
>> what kind of animal is this?
>> it looks like a longhorn, jeff. [laughter]
>> go to school grounds, they exhibit them in the Travis County livestock show and the star of Texas, that's just a reminder of what we have going at several schools in east Austin.
>> who said it was a longhorn? [laughter]
>> it's on the record.
>> lovely rivalry.
>> 17 schools are all elementary schools or --
>> no. We have -- we have three middle schools that we are working with.
>> 14 elementary schools?
>> yes.
>> I know you guys use the word support, but I would like to use the word investment that we have made in our youth after school. This is not one of those make time kinds of programs, this is real viable learning experiences but in a fun context for these kids. I appreciate, jeff, you pulling me in on the advisory group to go over and see these projects. We think of james as the goat guy. [laughter] but that's true you are doing a traffic job.
>> still working the character --
>> character counts is included in all of our programs. In fact we made a real push last year to incorporate it, even into our short-term programs, our camps. We actually had the kids every day, our team leaders would watch the kids during the day, make little notes. At the end of the day, the team leaders provided to the kids little beads which would represent each of the pillars of character. And it was -- it was pretty funny to watch these kids, even the 13-year-olds would go, this is good craktd ter, right? I'm exhibiting good character. Then at the end of the day, they would get their bead, we would use that as a way to really reinforce the concepts of character that we were trying to teach. In our after school programs that is a part of our programs, all of our programs we include character. Our mantra is to make the best better, I think that you can see that we have some really terrific kids here.
>> probably we forgot to mention, but you can see if you come to our annual achievement banquet, 4 h county-wide banquet is the way that it's integrated into the traditional, the older style 4 h clubs there. Pflugerville, manor, oak hill, the fact that these inner city kids are part of the overall 4 h program, receiving awards along with the tradition programs and you can't tell the difference any more between h 4 capital and tradition 4 h, it's all 4 h in Travis County. It's been a real testament to the staff and the work that they have done in bringing those kids more into the overall total program and the awards programs and those types of things. So it's been really good.
>> okay. Let me ask you a couple of questions. Do you all -- does this program extend over the summer months or during the course of the school year.
>> excuse me, during the summer come months, we do camps, outreach programs. We have scheduled programs in the north area and Round Rock kind of -- up in that area for the summer at the north rural center. We have programs scheduled for the south rural, we work with some community even faith based grps like krista rey, right next to the housing area on second street. Also programs with Austin community college, a program and outreach for junior high kids or middle school kids and we do programs for them. So we are -- we work very hard during the summer to do outreach programs and to work with community and faith based organizations to provide programs for them.
>> second question, I know that you mentioned blanton, but right up the street, down the street you have pecan springs and you have winn, sims, you have several schools in that general area elementary schools. My concern is how do you go out -- in other words, if anybody is not being served now, how do they become candidates to be served.
>> currently -- we are at maximum. In fact we grew this program so quickly that we just -- we have a waiting list. And if a school opts out, then other schools have an opportunity to -- to then become a part of our program. Currently every slot is filled. Now, we are hoping that with our americorps program that should start in August, we will be able to bring on some of the folks that are on our waiting list, be able to add programs. We have had programs at sims, but this last year we did though the include sims, we have andrews, blanton, pecan springs and that general area, that northeast area. We did a program at brown, which is in that northeast area, also. We did the program that brown is a part of their school day, we worked with the physical education department, that was our grant funded program. Because we did not have any after school slots for brown and they had requested programming, so that's why we selected for our grant funded program.
>> like barbara jordan for example is kind of busing at the seams as far as enrollment. Just wondering how we would become a part of this, since it's such a great success. Last year, when we had a position slush, was that the correct word, am I using the correct word? When one of our employees left, that position was not filled. So we were not able to serve barbara jordan this year because of that.
>> okay, all right, thanks.
>> we appreciate your hard work, dedication and outstanding services.
>> thank you very much.
>> thank you [multiple voices]
>> thank y'all.
Last Modified: Wednesday, May 27, 2003 7:52 PM