4-H - A Community of young people across the county who are learning leadership, citizenship and life skills…

4-H Educator, Laura Marek, and 4-H Program Assistant, Jann Carmody-Tanner work with the youth and adult volunteers responsible for the 4-H Club program in Litchfield County. Annually 350 to 400 youth are enrolled in one or more of the 30 organized 4-H Clubs.  Youth take on projects from raising animals to photography to geospace mapping with computers.  Over 100 adults provide volunteer leadership to the 4-h program in a variety of roles from club leadership to state advisory committees.

Youth are involved in county, state and national programs. A core group of 20 to 30 youth are responsible for planning the annual Litchfield County 4-H Fair (August 8 & 9, 2009 at the Goshen Fairgrounds). Learning by doing, these youth are developing leadership skills, taking on responsibility, and seeing a major project completed.

New initiatives are always coming through the 4-H program and Connecticut is involved with Operation: Military Kids, and the Science Engineering and Technology (SET) national mission mandate.