Submitted photo A presentation by Gianna Valone, titled the Negative Effects of Social Media.

Chautauqua County 4-H, managed by the Cornell Cooperative Extension, has once again hosted the children’s presentations, allowing children of all ages from around the community to present on a topic of great passion to them.

Lisette Cabrera, 4-H program coordinator, spoke more on the coordination of the presentations. Cabrera stated that the students are divided into two groups by age, with kids aged five to seven being part of the Clover Buds clubs and the kids aged eight to eighteen being full 4-H members. The separation limits the kids in the Clover Buds from fully participating in all 4-H events just due to age, but the youth all have the opportunity to go on to become full members once the age requirement is reached.

Cabrera said Clover Buds can also somewhat participate in this event as a way to push oneself outside of a comfort zone. However, these children will not have the ability to advance in the actual competition portion of the presentations until after they are above the age of eight. Cabrera stated that presentations typically ran no longer than fifteen minutes for the older kids, and had a three to five minute range for the Clover Buds. After this time the team of volunteer evaluators come around and gauge each presentation based on a rubric, offering the children beneficial critiques in the process. Afterwards the children will be given ribbons based on their presentation.

“We really appreciate our evaluator, and our volunteers. I can’t express enough appreciation for our volunteers that come out to spend hours, basically a whole Saturday and then come out in this insufferable weather,” said Cabrera. “Chautauqua County overall has a fantastic bunch of volunteers, and when it comes to something like this they really do come through.”

At this time, Cabrera stated that the winners of the competition have not been decided as a few children were unable to attend either due to sickness or the harsh weather conditions. While a proper excuse was required to miss, the organization still wants to offer these children a chance to come in for a makeup. Despite the need for a few makeups, Cabrera was pleasantly surprised by the fact that so few students were out and that zero volunteers were gone, even though the weather was particularly harsh that day.