Knox Co. 4-H’ers share winnings with charities

MOUNT VERNON, Ohio – The Knox County Fair junior livestock exhibitors are generous with their sale proceeds.
Before the local community makes its purchases, many of the youth have already determined the donations they will give to charities.
Some of the charities include: The Children’s Hospital Foundation, American Heart Association, Hospice of Knox County, churches, fire departments, 4-H Camp Ohio, the cat shelter, and the senior fair board.
The sale program lists the amount so the buyers are aware of the donation.
In 2004 the gross total of the livestock sale was $394,115.67 with exhibitor donations amounting to $9,078.52 going to 208 charities.
That was an increase of 10 exhibitors and nearly $600 from the 2003 charity donations.
This year more than 65 exhibitors donated to charities.
Brittani Ernest, a 4-H member from Utica, Ohio, donated $50 from the sale of her market hog to Hospice of Knox County.
“I did it, because I wanted to do something useful with the money. It was done in memory of my grandpa, Robert Doup, who died in 2001,” she said.
Hospice cared for him during his final days.
Nicole, Kammy, and Ethan Hardesty of Martinsburg, Ohio, have donated to the Bladensburg Fire Department through the sale for the past four years.
They have shown steers, dairy market feeders, swine, and lamb projects through the years in 4-H and FFA.
Seventeen-year-old Kammy Hardesty said, “The fire department helped me when I was in a car accident and they came when we had a tractor fire.”
Ethan Hardesty, 14, hopes that with the donations the fire board can purchase new equipment to save a life.
The fire department volunteers saved his cousin’s life by using an air pack, he explained.
In the past, Ethan has also donated to the American Heart Association in memory of his grandparents.