As the year 2020 continued to unfold, the Hardin County 4-H/Extension Staff knew they had to adapt quickly in order to keep their members and volunteers engaged while inviting new participants into the world of 4-H.  Therefore, the 4-H at Home Summer Discovery Series was developed and was all online and accessible from our county Extension website as well as our county Extension Facebook page.  It was evident we had to be flexible and offer more than one way for our community to connect with us while keeping things simple, fun and engaging.  Since we weren’t able to offer traditional programs in-person due to the COVID-19 restrictions in place, our goal was to bring 4-H into the homes of our community so that they could discover all that 4-H has to offer.  This series was targeted to youth ages 5-18 and ran for 9 weeks, June 1-July 31, 2020.  Weekly themed activities were planned and posted for participants to complete at their convenience based on the seven core curriculum areas of Kentucky 4-H in addition to promoting 4-H camping at home and highlighting our 4-H project fair.  A weekly video was also developed to introduce each theme and explain in more detail, many times with demonstrations provided.  The 9 weekly themes were: Agriculture & Animal Science, Leadership & Civic Engagement, Science, Engineering & Technology, Communications & Expressive Arts, Family & Consumer Sciences, 4-H Project Fair, Natural Resources, 4-H Camping at Home, Health & Nutrition.  Over the 9 week program, the engagement from our community via social media and our webpage reached an average of 792 people each week. 

Also included in this program was a weekly photography challenge where we encouraged our participants to take photos for each weeks theme which had been aligned with the State 4-H Photography categories that were then eligible for fair entry.  Even though there was no physical State Fair in 2020, we still highlighted projects in our county at a 4-H Project Fair where we saw a significant increase in 4-H photography entries, many of which were a result of our weekly photography challenges.  The photos were then voted on by our community via social media and averaged around 80 votes each week in order to choose our weekly favorite.