Mars 4-H STEAM collects coats
After a relatively warm holiday, the Mars Space Pioneers 4-H STEAM group is collecting gently used and new winter coats for those in need.
The coat drive runs on Thursday, Dec. 30, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at Social Sphere at 162 Brickyard Road, Suite 400, in Mars.
A second drop-off time is scheduled for Jan. 6 from 7 to 8 p.m. at Tokens Arcade, 18 Chesapeake St. in Lyndora.
The effort dovetails with a larger coat drive run by the statewide Pennsylvania 4-H organization, and the students will be delivering the coats they collect to the 2022 Pennsylvania Farm Show in January.
“I encourage people to go through their closet and take their hand-me-downs,” said Mars Space Pioneers 4-H STEAM leader Mary Elizabeth Snow. “A huge part of our club is to reduce, reuse and recycle. That's a very important part of everything we do.”
Snow has run the 4-H group since 2019, and hopes to garner interest in both agriculture and STEAM activities through participation.“4-H tends to be more agriculture, and my personal goal is to make agriculture and science realize how much they walk hand-in-hand,” Snow said. “All the kids that join my club tend to be regular residential kids who live in plans, but I try to expose them to the importance of agriculture. 4-H is a very good way to articulate that ability, and my goal is to put science and agriculture on the same stage, not separate.”An average of 12 to 19 students, between the ages of 8 and 18, come to the group's meetings on a regular basis. Students keep busy as part of the club through a variety of different projects, spread across agriculture, STEAM and community service.“Every year, 4-H comes up with what they are going to do as a service project,” Snow said. “One year, it was Christmas cards (for seniors). Last year the goal was 4,000 cards (statewide), and we sent 750.”Students in the club involved community members at Mars Light Up in writing the cards, and brought them into school at Mars Area School District.“We encourage community members to do it,” Snow said. “To me, it doesn't really count if you don't get the community involved.”Seven students from the Mars 4-H STEAM group will attend the state farm show at the beginning of January, and the group plans to present on the Lancaster Stage to share and educate about agriculture and science.“Each kid is going to teach a section and teach a small segment on why it's important,” Snow explained.The group also will participate in the Engineering Design Challenge, in which 4-H clubs compete to design Rube Goldberg-type machines that can complete a set task.
Snow herself is involved with the Mars New Year Committee, and has worked to plan that event alongside other local Mars businesses and organizations. At the 2021 Mars New Year celebration, she was honored with a “Martian of the Year” award for her work with the event and in the community.“It was really cool, and I was excited — I never thought I would get it,” she said. “I looked up to all of the people who won it before me.”Snow's three kids — ages 10, 13, and 15 — have been part of 4-H groups for the past eight years.Snow has been involved in agriculture and education her whole life.“Every one of my grandmothers was a teacher,” she said. “I'm a sixth-generation teacher and sixth-generation farmer.”She hopes to inspire kids to get more involved through the 4-H group.“I do a ton of the work, but the kids really are why I do it,” she said. “I do the work so that they realize how important it is to be an active member of the community.”
