Mobile County 4-H Volunteer
Inducted November 12, 2009
4-H volunteers come from all walks of life. They can be entrepreneurs, artists, photographers, teachers, horticulturists, or writers, to name a few. Milton Williams* is one who is all of these.
The 4-H Volunteer Leader program has been fortunate to have Williams serve as a Classroom in the Forest: Forest in the Classroom volunteer for the past 16 years. A native of Mobile, Williams lived in New York and worked as an artist. After retiring and moving back to Mobile County, he became interested in the Alabama Master Gardener Program. It was there that he started volunteering to help bring the Classroom in the Forest: Forest in the Classroom program to thousands of 5th-grade children in the Mobile County Public School System.
Not only does he volunteer to go into the classroom to speak to children about environmental education, but he also volunteers to take them to forests and private landowner’s property to teach them about the importance of trees.
Williams used his artistic ability and created educational visual aids to help the students better understand the carbon dioxide cycle, the layers of a forest, and the roots systems of trees. These visual aids proved to be so effective, he reproduced them and donated them to the 4-H Classroom in the Forest: Forest in the Classroom program. They are now being used across Alabama as teachers and other volunteers share the message of the importance of trees and Alabama forest lands.
Williams teaches young people to treasure the legacy of the forests that have been left to our care and he is truly a volunteer that takes youngsters by the hand, helps them stand a little taller, walk a little prouder, and be the best they can be.
Nominated by Maranda Marks
*deceased
