4-H was started in 1902 by A.B.

Graham, and the whole reason he started 4-H was because he had new agricultural practices that the adults in his community were not accepting.

And he was like, All right, if the adults won't listen to me, I'm going to talk to the kids.

And that's how 4-H got its start.

And we found in our community that mental health was really, really similar.

Adults are just shy about talking about it.

It's kind of taboo.

And so we were like, You know what?

We'll just talk to the kids about it.

And so we're hoping that by having kids learn more about mental health, be open to discussions about it, that not only will they talk to their parents, but in our future we'll have a generation of leaders who put mental health at the forefront.

I think a lot of people don't know that 4-H more than livestock.

When I first started, I served with my grandma for the first like seven years and I got to come to the state fair all the time and I really enjoyed it and then when I got into high school, I decided to start taking projects more towards my career path or what I thought I would want to do.

So I completely branched out and I took Self-determined sign language and I took diversity.

This year I took a leadership project.

I had like a bunch of life changing events that happened my eighth grade year, and I didn't really know what I was feeling.

And then they do this thing at my school called TeenScreen that your parents can sign you up for.

And it's like evaluating your answers to some questions and then I answered it, and then they pulled me into another room.

They were like, So here's the deal.

You need help.

And that basically got me started on like a mental health journey.

In our community in Harding County.

We're very rural, we only have 33,000 people.

And so there aren't very many resources in terms of counselors or mental health providers, clinicians.

We were talking about what do you do if you have diabetes?

We were talking about how do you sell a garment?

We were talking about how do you build a robot?

How do you feed your pigs?

There was a whole gamut of different things that we were doing, but we weren't talking to people about the fact that sometimes our brains don't fire the way that our brains should fire.

Well, if my brain's not working correctly, my brain controls my entire body, then what do we do?

We wanted to make sure that we could provide a tool that meets Ohio educational standards that teachers can use in their classroom, but that youth can also use all summer and 4-H projects as well.

So the project book that we wrote meets a lot of educational standards for mental health, both nationally and for Ohio.

In the three years that the books have been published, there have been over a thousand 4-H's that take this project and a lot of our club leaders select it as a club project as well.

So they'll do one activity at every club meeting.

So every single member in their club learns that project and gets to have those safe discussions with their adult leader.

Here we were definitely challenging some of the norms and some of the societal norms and engaging in a different way.

So if I'm learning how to sew a skirt, for example, that is a definite skill that I am gaining.

The activities in this project book encourage you to wrestle with your own thoughts and your own ideas about what mental health looks like, about what the stigmas are that exist.

And then there's a challenge in the book where we encourage them to build an info graphic and to do something within their community to help break that stigma.

Phones and social media can be like, terrible for you.

So if people are struggling in some way using those hobbies that they are passionate about and staying away from what they know hurts you, it makes such a big difference.

Whoever is using this curriculum, if they only learn one thing from this book, what I want them to learn is that it is okay to talk about mental health.

It's okay to share your emotions.

All of us, no matter who we are, where we come from, what we like, doesn't matter.

We all experience the spectrum of emotion, and the more we talk about our emotions and how we're feeling, the easier it is when we have a struggle.

So you will come across a lot of things that may be really, really hard for you, but you can make that choice to grow outside of your comfort zone.

If you or someone you know is in emotional crisis, call or text 9-8-8 or go to chat 988Lifeline.org.

Any time for confidential free crisis support.