By: Rebekah Greene, 4-H Agent
For 4-H’ers in 7th-12th grade, DPA (District Project Achievement) is one of the highlights of the year. As our Tattnall County 4-H program has grown over the past few years, we have been excited to see this program grow as well! Youth are encouraged to identify an area of interest for their project. We like to think of this as helping young people find their “spark”. Once they select an area of interest, we help them identify where it fits into the designated project categories for DPA. There are almost 30 project areas listed, so we can usually find one to fit almost any area of interest. After picking a project, youth complete activities throughout the year to help build their portfolio. Similar to a resume or capstone project, the portfolio allows youth to showcase progress they have made on their 4-H project during the calendar year (ex. January 2025-December 2025). Sign-ups for DPA started in September this year, and we were excited to have a large group of students express interest in the project.
For Junior 4-H’ers (7th-8th grade), the requirements include a short about me paragraph, two pages of activities divided into 6 sections (Main Project Learning, Main Project Sharing\Helping, Leadership, Community Service, 4-H Activities and Other Activities), and one page of photos with captions. For Senior 4-H’ers (9th-12th grade), the requirements include a cover letter, two pages of activities divided into 5 sections (Main Project Learning, Main Project Sharing\Helping, Leadership, Community Service, and Other Activities), and two pages of photos. All of these requirements must be completed by the county deadline in order to allow time for the County Extension Staff to upload them to the state website for judging. For this year, our deadline was December 15th. We did offer a grace period to accept portfolios until January 5th for students who needed extra time to work on them over the Christmas break. Unfortunately, students who did not submit all required parts of the portfolio by the January 5th final deadline will be unable to compete this year. If your child was interested in participating, but did not meet the deadlines this year, we hope they will try again next year! We would love the opportunity to work with them.
Our Tattnall County 4-H Staff are excited to congratulate all *28* Tattnall County youth who completed all of the requirements for portfolio submissions this year!
Performing Arts Competitors will all present a live vocal, instrumental, drama, or dance performance with a maximum length of 4 minutes. This year’s Performing Arts are competitors include: Americus Arnold, Haley Baldwin, Shyanne Busbie, Riley Henriquez, Katie Miller, Sophia Payne, Kylar Riner, and Lydia Summers.
Youth also have the opportunity to sign up for one of five Food Labs project areas. Youth in these areas create a recipe and prepare it live in front of judges at District Project Achievement. This year, Lou Lively will be competing in the Festive Foods for Health project.
Over 25 categories are available to choose from the require a traditional demonstration which is a speech and posters or slide presentation. These all have the same basic requirements with the exception of time limits: 7-8 minutes for Juniors and 10-12 minutes for Seniors. Seniors who will be presenting demonstrations this year include: Kaitlyn Eason, Maisy Hasz, Braylen Jarriel, Truitt Jarriel, Makayla Mincey, London Murphy, Richard Odom, Walker Page, Bentlee Phillips, Jeremiah Ray, Paityn Rigdon, & Brilee Stalls. Juniors who will be presenting demonstrations include: Caroline Jarriel, Brayden Jones, Cielo Martinez, Laila Murphy, Mia Page, Camden Quarles, and Cohen Rigdon
In order to help youth prepare for these upcoming competitions, Tattnall County 4-H will be hosting workshops on Monday-Friday afternoons from 3 p.m. – 5 p.m. at the Tattnall County Extension Office. Youth who need help practicing outside of this time frame or have transportation difficulties that would prevent them from getting to the Extension Office should contact the Extension Office at (912) 557-6724, ext. 4 to schedule an alternate time or location with 4-H staff.
All performances and demonstrations should be finalized and ready to present at our Dress Rehearsal and Parent Showcase on January 30th from 6 p.m. – 8 p.m. at the Tattnall County Extension Office. Youth who do not have their presentation finalized by this date will be ineligible to attend the competition on February 6-8, 2026 at Rock Eagle. We are happy to have great support from our community in helping fund our students’ DPA trips this year and we want to make sure that all students attending the trip are well prepared with high quality, competitive projects to represent these supporters and our county well!