Community members and leaders need to be comfortable advocating for issues that are important to them.  Having the confidence to interact with elected officials and decision makers is an important leadership skill that is often neglected in extension programming.Working with elected officials is a skill that can be learned just like proper gardening or food preservation techniques.  The “Empower Local Leaders” program was developed by a team of extension agents in the Mammoth Cave Are during 2016.  It offers participants the resources they need to become better advocates for issues they care about.  It was piloted in the 10 Mammoth Cave Area Counties during 2016-2017.  Results were positive and Kentucky Extension Leadership decided to offer the program statewide.  In-service trainings were offered during the summer of 2017 to help county agents be able to deliver the material to audiences they felt would benefit from the information.  The trainings were offered in both Lexington and Princeton.  These audiences would be mostly county extension councils and district boards, but other audiences were also identified.  Extension District Directors encouraged agents to deliver the program in all the Kentucky Counties.  Agents were provided with materials for program presentation and evaluation.  They were also encouraged to provide evaluation data so that it could be aggregated statewide.  Pre and post-tests were given with 374 participants from 35 counties completing a survey. 28% of participants increased their knowledge of the legislative process, 86% felt more prepared to contact an elected official about an issue that concerned them, and 65% are likely to contact an elected official in the next six months. Participants almost doubled their knowledge of the legislative process after ELL.