Every year, National 4-H Week sees millions of youth, parents, volunteers and alumni come together to celebrate the many positive youth development opportunities offered by 4-H.

The theme for this year’s National 4-H Week, Opportunity4All, is a campaign that was created by National 4-H Council to rally support for Cooperative Extension’s 4-H program and identify solutions to eliminate the opportunity gap that affects 55 million kids across America.

With so many children struggling to reach their full potential, 4-H believes that young people, in partnership with adults, can play a key role in creating a more promising and equitable future for youth, families and communities across the country. 4-H believes every child should have an equal opportunity to succeed, and every child should have the skills they need to make a difference in the world.

“We believe youth perspectives are so important and a solution to eliminating the opportunity gap, because young people come with new ideas and new ways of seeing the world,” Jennifer Sirangelo, president and CEO of the National 4-H Council, said.

By encouraging diverse voices and innovative actions, 4-H believes that solutions can be found to address the educational, economic and health issues that have created the opportunity gap.

“Although this year was not a normal year for our 4-H community, our clubs were creative,” Lawrence County 4-H educator Rachael Fraley said. “They supported one another from afar with social media messages, encouraging others to stay safe and to stay connected with Monday Motivations, clubs and individual 4-H members participated in acts of service reaching elderly with care baskets and families without food by filling community boxes.”

Fraley said 4-H youth in Lawrence County completed learning experiences through their 4-H projects by raising livestock animals, painting creative art murals and focusing on at-home activities around healthier living.

In Lawrence County, more than 550 4-H youth and 130 volunteers from the community are involved in 4-H and even more youth are involved through school enrichment projects such as Real Money, Real World and the CARteens program. Fraley said they also send many youth to 4-H camp at Canter’s Cave 4-H Camp, located in Jackson, each summer focusing on, not only the traditional 4-H camp experience, but also specialty camps such as STEM and Natural Resources. More information about local 4-H programs is available at lawrence.osu.edu.

Lawrence County 4-H will be observing National 4-H Week, throughout the week of Oct. 4-10, and encourage the community to join us by wearing Green on Wednesday, Oct. 7 for Spirit Day. Those taking part are asked to share on Facebook at lawrence4h.