Heart of 4-H Award Winner: Emalea Dean

Heart of 4-H logo.

Lancaster County 4-H presents a Heart of 4-H Award to a Lancaster County 4-H volunteer each month in recognition of outstanding volunteer serice. The purpose of this award is to recognize volunteers who are, indeed, the heart of 4-H.

See All Heart of 4-H Winners
January 2021
Emalea Dean
Emalea Dean holding a certificate.
Emalea Dean

For five years, Emalea has contributed to Lancaster County 4-H. She helps the following 4-H clubs as a parent volunteer:

  • Clever Clovers — helping with meetings and 4-H projects, as well as hosting club parties.
  • Rabbits R Us — hosting meetings and helping with service projects such as the dunk tank fundraiser.
  • 4 On The Floor dog club — she plans to contribute more when meetings resume.

“I like being a 4-H volunteer because I love to watch the 4-H’ers learn and grow with new skills and talents. Many of the skills that kids learn from 4-H are lifetime skills. I think about my three girls learning beginning cooking and sewing skills, and know that they will use those skills for the rest of their lives. As a 4-H volunteer, you encourage 4-H’ers to lead meetings and projects, and in turn, that teaches them the skills of leadership and public speaking. Finally, the best part of being a 4-H volunteer is walking around the fair and seeing the projects on display or watching the 4-H’ers present their project or animal in front of a judge and audience. I have a couple of favorite experiences:

  • Working the food booth at the county fair and seeing the kids excited to help others and thanking customers for supporting 4-H.
  • Working service projects — Planting flowers at a local nursing home in the springtime so that the residences had beautiful planters to enjoy by summertime.”