Delivery of nutrition education in person came to a halt in 2020, which caused a multitude of challenges we had to face due to the COIVID-19 pandemic.  In spite of all the chaos, the Wolfe County Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program-Education (SNAP-Ed) Senior Assistant partnered with the Wolfe County Cooperative Extension Service and followed the guidance from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and created a plan to have an in person day camp for the youth of Wolfe County. An outdoors program proved to be the easiest way to keep everyone socially distanced and to provide educational content to the youth participants.
Information from LEAP, Discovery My Plate, Agriculture, 4-H, and Family and Consumer Science were delivered to school age youth during a three day event called “Discovery Camp.” Youth were taught about the food groups, recipes, gardening, using solar power to create an oven, and technology. A total of 26 youth, ranging from ages 4 to 15 attended the three day camp. Of those 76% said they would try new foods, 95% said they would eat vegetables, and 71% said they would eat fruit as a snack.  One youth stated, “I am so excited to be able to participate in person and to learn about gardening because I get to see some of my friends and I also get to take what I learned home and apply that to our garden my family is growing.” All twenty-six youth were impacted by the Discovery Camp and will attend again next summer.