COLUMBUS, Ohio – Junior fairs and 4-H clubs are often associated with Ohio’s rural counties. However, Franklin County, one of the state’s most urban counties, is home to a surprisingly large number of community 4-H clubs, with a growing membership.

“We’re a thriving community 4-H-club county,” Beth Boomershine said. Boomershine, a 4-H youth development educator with the Franklin County Extension office, works with multiple Franklin County 4-H Clubs. “We have about 40 community clubs around the county, with a little over 800 members,” she said.

That number of 4-H participants fares favorably with many of Ohio’s other counties. “We have our large 4-H counties like Muskingum, Ross, and Clark counties that I want to say have 1,500-1,600 kids in 4-H – but we are very comparable to other counties around the state,” Boomershine said. “I grew up in Jefferson County, which is in the east part of the state and we had about the same number of kids as Franklin.”

The county is a conglomerate of old and new – with traditional agriculture programming combined with community club programming. Each summer the county fair is still where 4-H members bring projects and gather to share experiences and support each other.

Thirteen-year-old Audreaunna New used the leadership and communication skills acquired through 4-H by helping participants prepare for the Junior Fair Goat Show. New was evaluating and giving feedback to young exhibitors on their ability to get their animals to work with them. “We are practicing judging,” she said. “They’re just seeing how they would prepare their animals for the show.”

Sixteen-year-old Nathaniel Jacobs was only one of four Junior Fair exhibitors with a beef steer at the Franklin County Fair. Jacobs, who grew up around beef cattle, was spending his second week at an Ohio county fair.

“My grandpa has a beef farm so ever since I was a little kid I wanted to show beef cattle,” Jacobs said. “And we were at the Madison County last week and then came over here.”

Middle schooler Georgia Rice, who showed a market swine at this year’s fair, has been involved in 4-H for six years and values the Junior Fair experience. “I like getting to show and putting in all my effort and learning how to be responsible on my own,” she said.

As judges evaluated animal companion projects, Boomershine explained why 4-H participation is growing in Franklin County. “A lot of the kids want to get involved just because it’s another way to connect with kids their age,” she said. “We have a huge number of home school kids that want to get involved too.”

While the number of large animal projects remains relatively, low small animal projects continue to be popular. “As far as livestock, we’re not nearly as big as many rural counties,” Boomershine said. “The number of beef cattle and lambs is small, but we have tons of goats and our chickens and rabbits are huge.”

When it comes to the lack of large animal 4-H projects in Franklin Coi]unty, horses are the exception. “We are a huge horse county,” Boomershine said. “We have four barns of horses, and we’re one of the top five counties with the number of horses that come to our fair.”

Melissa Dickson, the adviser for the Morris Road Mavericks, attributes the popularity of horses to the number of horse farms and trainers in the area willing to work with kids. “Columbus in itself is a great location, with Quarter Horse Congress and Equine Affaire here I think that it’s become the heart of the state in leadership in the equine community.”

Horse events were featured each day of the Franklin County Fair’s seven-day run.

The Morris Road Mavericks 4-H club started in 2020 and has livestock and non-livestock projects with kids participating in beef, goats, chickens and poultry. In addition, there are beekeeping and archery projects. “It’s a good balance,” Dickson said. “We currently do not have anyone in the horse project but as a club, we represent a quarter of all the market duck projects this year.”

The Mavericks are a good example of how community clubs have rebounded from the pandemic. “We have 19 members and four clover buds. A clover bud is someone aged five through eight,” Dickson said. “It’s funny when we started, we only had five members. We had the basic requirements – three families and five kids.”

Most of the community clubs are volunteer run. “They do it in a church basement or someone’s backyard or some schools allow them to use their building,” Boomershine said.

Franklin County’s 4-H membership showed steady growth before COVID-19, topping out at over 800 in 2020. That number dropped to around 700 following the pandemic but it’s currently over 800.

“The people that contact our office, wanting their kids to get into 4-H are looking for something for their kids to get involved in because maybe school sports isn’t their thing,” Boomershine said. “There’s also a huge group of people who want to know where their food comes from, or they want to get in touch with their agricultural roots, even if it was grandma or grandpa who had the farm.”