A typical 5-day 4-H Camp session offers upwards of 96 hours of direct, uninterrupted contact between youth and their cabin leaders/counselors. That’s the equivalent of a family sitting down at the dinner table for 30-minutes, 196 days of the year. The interactions offered in a residential camp/group living setting are so important to youth, especially considering the isolation brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. The time we spend with youth in the camp setting offers opportunities for those youth to feel a sense of belonging, to have meaningful conversations with caring adults, to practice generosity, group decision making, they experience new activities they typically do not have access to at home, and they gain independence by taking on the responsibility in keeping track of their belongings and keeping to the camp schedule.

Youth are eligible to attend residential summer camp as a participant for a span of 6 years, beginning at age 9, and aging out at 14. 15-year-olds can return as a counselor-in-training, with opportunities to observe adult cabin leaders/counselors, attend leadership workshops, assist with leading some camp classes, and even more behind the scenes support of their camp session programming. During the 2022 Program Year, 9,714 individuals participated in Kentucky 4-H Summer Camp at one of our four camp facilities. The breakdown of attendance includes: 8,144 youth, 1,071 adult volunteers, and 208 extension staff. To breakdown attendance even further, of the 9,714 individuals: 5,560 identified as female, 4,154 identified as male, 192 were Hispanic/Latino ethnicity, 9,066 were white, 305 were black, 64 were Asian/Pacific Islander, 14 Native American Indian/Alaska Native, and 265 were Other.

The vision of Kentucky 4-H Camping is to serve the citizens of Kentucky and beyond by providing a safe environment for experiential learning opportunities. The mission of Kentucky 4-H Camping is to improve people through intentional life skill development. This will happen through: collaboration with local, state, and national partners, research-based methods and programming,  service-oriented practices ,long-term strategic planning,  and play.

148 Kenton County youth and adults attended 4-H camp this summer. More than half of the youth had never attended camp before. Several children that attended were in foster care or were being raised by grandparents. One of our children that was in a foster home stated “He wanted to stay at camp forever. Another child asked his camp counselor to adopt him. This is what makes 4-H camp special, it can best the best week of some Children’s lives.