Found in various types of communities around the country, 4-H is open to youth in Grades 3 through 12.

Members are welcome to join clubs no matter their race, religion, color, sex, national origin, marital status, parental status, sexual orientation or disability.

To encourage more involvement, Indiana 4-H recently invited a Jackson County club to participate in a Spanish promotional video shoot.

Twenty members of the Working for Our Dreams 4-H Club and their parents made the trip to Purdue University in West Lafayette to tour the campus and be filmed in segments that soon will appear on the state 4-H website, social media sites and YouTube channel.

Iveth Vasquez, who leads the club along with Becky Bujwid, said it was a great experience.

“I’m very grateful that we could do this,” she said. “They saw that we’ve done a good job, and they’ve seen some of the kids here that have gone to state, and they’ve seen that we’ve grown a lot.”

Ryan Wynkoop, special projects coordinator for Indiana 4-H, said the project came about because the state organization realized there is a lot of youth it isn’t reaching.

“We wanted to take this opportunity to reach out to the youth in Jackson County and use them to create more publicity to encourage kids like them to join 4-H,” he said. “Kids join groups based on other kids that act and look like them. They want to fit in. They want to belong. This opportunity really helps new audiences feel like they belong in our program.”

During the video shoot, Indiana 4-H staff members brought in a few members of the club at a time to film different segments. They also filmed segments with parents.

The students were asked about why they joined 4-H, their favorite aspect of it and what they have learned, while the parents shared how being a part of 4-H has helped their child.

Wynkoop said the videos are being put together now, and they will soon be up on the website, social media and YouTube. There will be Spanish and English versions of the videos with subtitles.

Read the full story in Wednesday’s Tribune and online at tribtown.com.