Cooking, sewing, cleaning and laundry are all basic life skills that are essential for youth to become independent adults. Learning to prepare a healthy meal, cleaning your home, sewing on a button, washing laundry the correct way, and properly cleaning your home are all skills that these young teens have learned. The teen said, “it is so satisfying to know that I can do all of these things on my own”.

Letcher County 4-H partner with Partner for Rural Impact to create a series of four different workshops this summer. The workshops have allowed fourteen youth to take home laundry bags, hand sewing kits, kitchen tools, and life skills that these youth will continue to use throughout the rest of their lives.

From the first session with the fourteen we spoke about how many had independently washed laundry, and only one teen had separated our and correctly done laundry. Two of the teens said that they had done some cooking, but they felt much more confident after having been through the Adulting 101 class. A few had ever done cleaning, and none had ever done heavy cleaning at the change of the season. None of the teens said that they had ever made homemade bread and baked very much. By the end of the four lessons all fourteen teenagers had gained valuable life skills, communications skills, and felt more confidence in themselves as teenagers finishing high and some as first year freshman in college.  

This was such a rewarding experience for me as an agent and such a great program that so many of our young people are lacking the skills.