Local 4-H club wins prestigious state award
The Longview Disciples 4-H Club of the Mississippi State University Extension Service has earned the 2020 4-H Governor’s Award which is awarded to the top club in the state.
Angela Buress-stewart is the club leader for the Longview Disciples, and she said the award is the result of her club’s hard work and dedication to serving the community.
“This award is given to the club that meets all of their different criteria such as community service activities, meetings, and the scope and the depth of the meeting of the projects that we do. Not only that, we also had two youth who not only just became members of the leadership team, but they also were awarded the standard of excellence,” said Buressstewart. “They participate in a lot of other activities, like our President Coltie Young who plays for the high school basketball team, and our Secretary Sarah Roberson. They’re very active in the community, because they even helped with delivering food and making masks this past summer.
All of these things that the kids do help the club achieve the award that we have received. It has to do with participation with the club activities and projects, the scope and depth of the activities and projects, and the participation on the county, state,
and national levels. We have participated not only on a local level, but on a county level, on a district level, regional level, state level, and national level. We simply met the criteria to win the award.”
The club’s mission is to provide an informal, practical, learn-by-doing educational program for youth ages 5-19 from all racial, cultural, economic, and social backgrounds, and also to provide a positive program with caring adults, in a safe environment where youth can make the best better.
“We do a lot of community service activities and a lot of 4-H club work. For the last two years, we’ve been helping tornado victims in different counties. In 2019, we helped the Columbus tornado victims, the youth over there in the different schools, by collecting backpacks over here and getting school supplies for them, because we knew that a lot of them didn’t have school supplies,” said Buress-stewart. “So, we collected about close to 100 backpacks to donate to Lowndes County. In this particular year, Jefferson Davis County, which was hit by the Easter tornadoes back in early April, we did disaster-relief buckets to send down there. We had different organizations in the community help us, and we went on Facebook to ask people to donate. We delivered about 75 buckets with clothes, shoes, masks, tarps, brooms, and other things for them.”
In 2014, Buress-stewart was diagnosed with stage IV kidney cancer, placing her on dialysis for three years. During that time, it was difficult for the club to run without her.
In June of 2017, Linda Young, who is one of the club’s volunteers and also Buress-stewart’s sister, decided to donate one of her kidneys so that she could return to lead the club.
Ever since then, she has had some complications such as losing vision in her left eye. But she does not let that stop her from instructing and guiding the club members in local, county, district, state and national contests, and events.
“We still have work to do, and I don’t think God saved me to just sit around and not do anything,” said Buress-stewart. “I want the kids to understand that no matter what your obstacles and challenges are, you can still make a difference in your community. Even if it’s only one project at a time, we can all make a difference.”