While death can be an unpleasant topic to talk about, it is still a very important one. With the global pandemic, death can be a major uncertainty. People often associate estate planning with age, but that is no longer the case. The CDC reports that over a million people have died from COVID in the US. On top of these unexpected deaths, research shows that only 37% of Americans in the US have a living will in place. Estate planning was an important issue that needed to be addressed pre-pandemic and has only increased in importance during the pandemic.

The Grant County Extension office FCS agent, Asa Conkwright, along with UK Specialist Dr. Nicole Huff, and a local attorney offered a two-part estate planning program centered around ten publications offered by the university that covered, in detail various steps in estate planning from where to start, building your team, and digital estate planning. A question-and-answer session was also performed by the local attorney after participants were given the ten publications to read and produce informed questions. An evaluation was given at the end of the second day to measure understanding and future intent involving estate planning. The results were as follows:

100% of participants reported an increase in knowledge on how to manage/address estate planning issues facing their family, farming operation, or business.

100% of participants reported an increase in ability to identify estate planning strategies for their family, farming operation, or business.

90% of participants reported an increase in confidence in handling estate planning matters.

100% reported they will create at least one estate planning related goal, take an action towards implementing at least one estate planning strategy, and intent to fully implementing at least one estate planning strategy.

Participants were also asked what they learned that they believe will assist the most regarding estate planning and updating wills and long-term planning were reported and the most reported learned skill was where to begin the process.

Participants also reported after the program that they have taken steps they learned about during the program or have consulted with an attorney regarding their estates.