4-H Cooking

The Jessamine County 4-H Program has had an increase in cooking for youth over the past several years.   In order to meet this need, Jessamine County 4-H partnered with volunteer leaders and the Jessamine County Schools to hold several cooking programs.  The 4-H Kitchen Stars is a cooking club open to 9-18 year olds and held once a month during the school year. Due to demand, two separate clubs were offered and 32 total youth participated.  Those 32 youth received 14 hours of education and experience in the kitchen.  Youth learned knife skills, proper measuring, proper food safety, how to read a recipe, and baking skills.  Of the 32 youth who participated, 22 of them tried a new food for the first time, 28 learned how to properly use a knife for the first time, and 26 of them reported feeling confident in recipe reading.

4-H also partnered with the Jessamine County Schools to offer cooking as part of the after school 4-H club at West Jessamine Middle School.  12 youth participated in this cooking group, and learned baking skills as well as what makes a good baked item.  The West Jessamine Middle School group used the skills they learned to bake cookies and muffins for faculty and for families in need for the holidays, and used this as civic engagement to give back to others.

Jessamine 4-H is partnering with Jessamine FCS and SNAP to offer a cooking camp for three days in the summer of 2019.  16 youth are signed up and will learn how to make their own lunch, and proper cooking techniques, capitalizing on skills they already have.