Benton County 4-H Receives $3500 Theisen’s Grant for Benton County 4-H: Helping Your Neighbor ProgramTheisen's awarded a grant of $3500.00 to the Benton County Extension and the Benton County 4-H Program. The Benton County 4-H Youth Council a high school leadership group through 4-H applied for the grant to provide a program called "Help Your Neighbor". This will be a continuation of the program from last year which was an amazing success!

The intent of this program is to provide families with needed household and/or clothing needs for their children. Families need to be within the guidelines of free lunch program. There will be a $50 gift card for each child (with a limit of $100 per family) in these families to be spent at the local Theisen's store in Vinton. This program will be used to help families in need in Benton County and to give awareness of needs to the youth involved in the project.

Once a family has applied and are awarded financial assistance, each family will receive an Iowa State University bag that will include various information, including 4-H promotional materials and other Iowa State University Publications on budgeting, family nutrition, and stress management. These bags will be mailed directly to the families to prevent any one feeling singled out by the program.

If you have any questions or if you need additional information, contact Michelle Thomsen, Benton County Youth Coordinator at the Benton County Extension office at 319-472-4739 or via e-mail thomsenm@iastate.edu. Please understand that this is on a first come, first serve basis and will be active as long as the funds are still available.