Sussex County 4-H honored three Delaware youth leaders, Madison Johnson, Murphy McCarroll and Declan West with the Delaware 4-H Diamond Clover Award.   

Created in 2014, the Diamond Clover Award celebrates and acknowledges excellence in extraordinary, sustained, and focused service learning in their community. Delaware 4-H is coordinated and administered through University of Delaware Cooperative Extension. 

The Diamond Clover is not awarded every year, nor in every county. It is rare to have three complete the work from one county, albeit one, a belated celebration from 2023.

Far from a participation award or years served achievement, the Diamond Clover must be earned. Each 4-H member is required to identify a community need and move through a process that involves five stages across at least as many years. Earning a Diamond Clover Award is a multi-year journey which requires extensive documentation of a major community service project with lasting impact. The award is similar in significance to the Eagle Scout award. 

Ms. Johnson, from Selbyville and a 19-year-old University of Delaware student titled her service project “Threads of Love.” Her endeavor assisted children in hospitals recovering from premature birth, illness, or surgeries by providing comforting hand-sewn blankets and care packages.

Ms. Johnson partnered with Project Linus, an organization that collects donated blankets and distributes them to distressed children, to help her distribute the blankets.

A member of the Country Clovers 4-H Club, Ms. Johnson was able to donate more than 60 blanket care packages. Each care package came with one blanket, toy, book, and words of kindness from 4-H clubs and Project Linus to provide further encouragement. 

Ms. Johnson taught more than 20 of her fellow 4-H members in two different clubs how to sew the blankets. Ms. Johnson credits all those that helped her reach her goal. 

Ms. Johnson feels her project was a success that changed the lives of many children in need while raising awareness and educating her peers. She hopes that she left a lasting impact on the lives she touched and inspired them all to continue giving back to their community. Ms. Johnson earned her Diamond Clover in the 2023 calendar year.

Ms. McCarroll looked to oceans and rivers for her inspiration to make a difference by creating public service announcements or PSA. “PSA’s Against Plastic” addresses the issue of plastic pollution in the environment.

Through research, Ms. McCarroll found that plastic garbage is left on the ground to be swept into a river or the ocean. To help combat this problem, she created public service announcements on how businesses and individuals can help with plastic pollution.

Members of her Sunset Branch 4-H Club in Millsboro were featured in the PSA’s. Ms. McCarroll created versions for television and radio and sent them to local media outlets. WMDT aired a 30 second version of her PSA more than 860 times since May 2024. She was also interviewed by Delmarva Public Media in August about her project.

In addition, Ms. McCarroll developed a website, psasagainstplastic.org, educating the public about plastic pollution, PSA’s, and data about trash collected at the beach. She has conducted five beach cleanups over the past year at local beaches and collected 1,329 pieces of trash, with the majority being plastic packaging and hang tags. 

Seeing this, Ms. McCarroll asked her club to help donate metal or wooden baskets and scissors for local businesses to keep behind the counter so cashiers can ask customers if they would like the item tags removed. She also made and handed out a brochure of suggestions for businesses to help keep the coastline plastic free and handed these out to many local businesses.  Ms. McCarroll is a senior homeschool student. 

Agriculture is Delaware’s largest economic driver and Hollymount 4-H member and Milton resident Mr. West wanted to connect a wide variety of agriculture-related people with younger students in elementary and middle schools so students could “Meet the Farmer,” the name West anointed as his service project.

The idea came from attending two separate National 4-H Ag Summits with his sister, Ainsley, a previous Diamond Clover honoree. Together they formed the idea of Meet the Farmer talks.

The visits ranged from a shepherd taking a sheep to an elementary school to students meeting a grain farmer and hearing how that farmer plans, grows, cultivates and stores the grain. 

Mr. West soon discovered a menu of opportunities to feature guest speakers and their topics. He developed a marketing brochure to promote his program in schools as well as local libraries. He found getting into schools was very challenging, nevertheless he was able to take his animals to one school multiple times.

He also visited his local library for community events. A few other libraries have caught on and contacted Mr. West for future presentations. Word is getting out about this program and an increasing number of children and adults are becoming more familiar about the importance of agriculture in Delaware. Mr. West is a junior at Cape Henlopen High School.

“The Level 6 Diamond Clover project is exceptional because it helps our 4-H’ers use the leadership, service, and public speaking skills they obtain as a Delaware 4-H member,” said Jill Jackson, Sussex County 4-H extension educator. 

“Each service project is unique to the interests of the 4-H member. It was wonderful to see these three individuals take pride in planning and implementing their projects and we applaud them for their hard work and dedication.”

Ms. Johnson, Ms. McCarroll and Mr. West were honored along with youth members and adult volunteers at the Sussex County 4-H Achievement Banquet Sept. 29 at the Ross Station in Seaford.

Delaware 4-H is the largest youth program in the state, reaching on average 31,000 youth a year through clubs, special events, overnight and day camps, and in-school and afterschool programs. It is supported by the University of Delaware Cooperative Extension and is an equal opportunity provider. For more information about Sussex County 4-H, contact Jill Jackson at 302-831-3280.