Do you want to meet five awesome people from every state in the U.S.? How about 10 kids from Puerto Rico?
Going to the Washington National Conference was a life changing experience. I did so much networking and met new friends and 4-H members from everywhere.
My trip started with a plane ride from Toronto to Ottawa, where I met my chaperones and the 11 other delegates from across Canada. They delegates consisted of one person from nearly every province; the chaperones were from Ontario and Saskatchewan.
We met two days before we left for the U.S., so we could have the best possible understanding of our country’s history and political ways.
We toured the parliament buildings and got to sit in on a question period. We talked with MPs and after we went to all of the interesting places in Ottawa, including the opening dinner banquet for the National 4-H citizenship seminar.
Once in Washington, we toured and met the minister of agriculture. We got visited the International Spy Museum, which featured a James Bond car and “crazy” CIA stuff. We also went to the Air and Space museum.
We stayed at the national 4-H Youth Conference Centre in Chevy Chase, Maryland, an awesome camp and mansion with meeting rooms named after every state. We spent a portion of every day discussing ideas for the U.S. Department of Agriculture to use for 4-H and farming.
Ontario has a different type of 4-H from any other province and the U.S. In Ontario, we host every meeting together and work on our project together. In the U.S., and the other provinces they hold meetings once a month or so and do clubs, which is when members have different projects under one club. For us, a club is the people who do the project together, and we do it all in the same place at the same time.
