Calhoun 4-H Sportfishing Thanks FlatsWorthy

“Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” -Chinese Proverb.  For those of you who may not know me, my name is Emilee DeForest. In March, I will begin my second year as the 4-H and Youth Development Extension Agent in Calhoun County.

As we all know, this last year has been an interesting one, especially for the kids. Fortunately, the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service and Texas Sea Grant have been able to work together to give our youth the opportunity to learn basic fishing skills. At the beginning of the summer, we held Zoom meetings with a few of our Calhoun County 4-H members, as well as an Aransas County 4-H member. We were able to show them how to tie some basic knots, and just give the youth a chance to interact with each other during a time when they were isolated from their friends. Towards the end of summer when restrictions lessened a bit, we were able to meet in person to have a kayak adventure in Port O’Connor.

We had such a great interest in the 4-H Sportfishing project, that we decided to create our very own Calhoun County 4-H Sportfishing Club. We reached out to a couple of the parents to see if they would be willing to be adult volunteers, and, shortly after, the club was founded. On behalf of Calhoun County 4-H Sportfishing Club, we would like to send a huge Thank You to FlatsWorthy for the generous donation through the Jere Parrish Youth Stewardship Fund. This donation will help to cover expenses we will encounter through educating our youth, including bait, equipment, etc. Our plan for the program is to educate the youth on the different species of fish and crabs (and how to catch/cook them, of course); put our youth through a basic water safety course to ensure they know what to do in case of a water-related emergency; and other fun and educational fishing/water related activities.

I look forward to meeting more FlatsWorthy members at some of our future 4-H Sportfishing events. FlatsWorthy has such a great message, and I can’t wait to share that with all Calhoun County 4-H members through our 4-H Sportfishing Program.  Emilee DeForest, CEA 4-H Youth Development.

Featured image: L to R – Madden Guevara, and Nicolas Ragusin (FlatsWorthy Youth Ambassadors), and Chuck Naiser