2.8% of Calloway County is of Hispanic or Latino descent. Many Hispanic youth in Calloway County come from farming and roofing families, and only see themselves going into one of those trades after graduating high school. Some of these youth do not speak English as their first language, and most parents of these youth also do not speak English as their first language. This can make successfully graduating from high school difficult for our Hispanic and Latino youth. 

To assist our Hispanic youth with graduating high school and successfully moving on to post-graduate plans, we decided to start the 4-H Juntos program with the Murray Independent School District. The majority of Hispanic youth in the county attend this school district, so we partnered with the ESL Teacher at Murray High School to start the program. Juntos is available to all high school aged youth attending Murray High School and their families. The program will consist of 6 workshops in the fall for the youth and their families, quarterly family nights, an in-school club for the youth only, and each youth will have the opportunity to attend the Juntos Summer Academy. 

We started the program off with a family night in May of 2023. Calloway 4-H, the Calloway County Health Department, KY Adult Education Program, and Murray High School guidance counselors were there to help students and their parents learn how to use their online school system. Families visited with each organization, ate dinner, and learned about the 4-H Juntos program. All 6 families indicated that they planned to attend the 4-H Juntos workshops in the Fall and planned to take English language lessons from the KY Adult Education Program.