Albemarle and Louisa mark National 4-H Week 

For over a hundred years, a nationwide network that provides support to the country’s farmers and agricultural providers has offered services to young people who want to take on that work. 

For the next several days, the National Cooperative System celebrates National 4-H Week. The Louisa County Board of Supervisors adopted a resolution last night, read by County Administrator Christian Goodwin. 

“4-H is the nation’s largest youth development organization with more than 6 million youth in urban neighborhoods, suburban schoolyards, and rural farming communities who stand out among their peers building revolutionary opportunities and implementing community wide change at an early age,” Goodwin said. 

Representatives from Four-H addressed the Louisa County Board to explain what they need in order to grow the number of young people in the program. Kylie Hoffman said every student should learn about the importance of agriculture. 

“We have 8,000 youth in Louisa County, and we are reaching 2800 of those,” Hoffman said. “And so what are our limitations? Meeting space and volunteers.”

There are around 2,800 youth in Louisa who are members according to Jennifer Thompson, the Virginia Cooperative Extension agent for the county. They meet in the county office building in Louisa County and don’t have their own independent space to operate. 

There are fewer students participating in 4-H in Albemarle County and Charlottesville with 1,800 being the number cited in a proclamation before the Board of Supervisors on October 2. 

“[The] Virginia Cooperative Extension system conducts 4-H programs throughout the state, land grant universities, Virginia Tech and Virginia state with the mission to help young people acquire knowledge, develop skills and form attitudes which will help them become self directed, productive members of society,” said Supervisor Ann Mallek while reading Albemarle’s proclamation. (read the proclamation)

Supervisor Diantha McKeel said 4-H participants are learning skills that are critical in the world of today.

“Many of them really are critical for us during these times,” McKeel said. “When you look at critical issues such as protecting the environment, providing programmes, The 4-H really is a great organization to help our children, no matter what age, to help us in the future solve some of these problems.”

For more information on 4-H, take a look at the website of the Virginia Cooperative Extension. 

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