Future Leaders of Watersheds (FLOW) Explore and Restore Southern WV Streams

Wyoming County, WV 4-H FLOW, an AmeriCorps Learn & Serve grantee of the WV Commission for National and Community Service, completed over 500 hours of watershed service-learning projects. Youth met aftershool twice per month over a 6 month period, completing project WET curriculum activities. One of their activities included a guest speaker from Raleigh County, WV Solid Waste Authority teaching the youth about reduce, reuse, and recycle. Did you know that composting is a way of recycling? The youth unanimously agreed that since styrofoam is non-biodegradable that they would tell their families to opt for other disposable materials, and they decided to make decorative stepping stones for a local community center using recyclable materials.

4-H FLOW youth (grades 2- 8) provided outreach to the community about the local Upper Guyandotte Watershed in a community scavenger hunt. Mullens, WV community members remembered the disastrous flood of 2001 and described the relief efforts to the youth. On May 9th, 2009 the Guyandotte River's waters rose again, flooding Wyoming and Mingo Counties. 4-H FLOW youth assisted households in Black Eagle, WV with inventorying damaged items and cleaning up.

The 4-H FLOW youth completed service projects at least one weekend per month. They planted trees at the Mullens Middle School on Earth Day 2009 and planted a raised garden bed at the local community center, tested the water quality of Horse Creek Lake, identified macroinvertebrates in the Guyandotte River, cleaned up trash from the Slab Fork Creek and Guyandotte River, cleaned out tires that were dumped in the watershed, and provided outreach at the Guyandotte River Celebration.