Norwood Woman Receives 4-H Ontario’s Most Distinguished Volunteer Award
/Cathy Stockdale from Norwood is one of three recipients of the 2022 4-H Ontario Arbor Award, 4-H Ontario’s most distinguished volunteer award.
Cathy with her daughter Rebecca at a 4-H judging clinic . Photo courtesy of Cathy Stockdale.
4-H is a non-profit youth development organization that allows young people to learn about selected topics through fun, hands-on activities and mentorship.
The Peterborough 4-H association has several clubs across the county that teach about life skills.
“I’ve done it all from poultry to outdoors to crafting clubs, quilting, sewing, cooking, gardening, square dancing, even a giant veggie club,” she said.
All clubs are able to operate because of volunteers like Stockdale.
“I am getting close to 30 years of volunteering. It’s something that I did as a kid, then it eventually evolved into a leader position.”
Stockdale says that even though her own children are no longer participating in 4-H clubs, she continues to lead them because of how rewarding it is.
“Teaching kids a new skill and having them grasp that new skill, seeing the light go on when they figure it out is a very big reward. It's like watching the light bulb come on like ‘oh I can do this!’,” she said. “Watching that satisfaction of them completing that task is very rewarding for me as a leader.”
She notes that teaching young people life skills is something that does not seem to happen as often as it did years ago. Looking back to when she was in school she remembers learning basic skills like sewing, cooking and basic car maintenance.
“It's starting to come back - teaching these skills, we lost that for a while. 4-H has picked that up. Where else can you learn how to cook something and then have a meal at the end of the meeting? Or you grow a pumpkin and then see how big you can get them?”
Peterborough County 4-H ‘adopted’ a road in Peterborough County. Stockdale’s son spearheaded this idea. Here a group of members are cleaning up litter. Photo courtesy of Cathy Stockdale.
