When the COVID-19 pandemic shut down programming in March 2020 youth, families, and communities experienced long-term isolation and alteration of their typical lives related to in and out of school activities. Youth out-of-school time programs, such as 4-H, are essential ecological assets and their disruption during the pandemic may have a major impact on youth’s developmental pathways (Ettekal & Aganas, 2020). For many youth, COVID-19 will be the defining issue of their lives and affect them in ways that will mark the course of their life-long development (Bartlett & Virette, 2020). As we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, it is imperative that programs, communities, and families that are involved in the lives of youth make a diligent effort to restore and rebuild opportunities that provide experiences to develop interpersonal life-skills. Hosting the Kentucky 4-H Teen Conference in June 2021 was an attempt to provide a typical cumulative experience for senior-level 4-H members. Due to COVID-19 capacity restrictions the conference was open to only those senior-level youth who participated throughout the program year in a Kentucky 4-H leadership board or the Kentucky 4-H Achievement Program.

208 youth participated in the 2021 Kentucky 4-H Teen Conference. From Montgomery County, three delegates registered to attend but due to COVID-19 protocol two who were Silver Achievement winners had to cancel within three days of attending the conference.  As a result of attending the conference for the delegate who was able to attend related back that it was important to attend the conference this year because it reunited 4-Hers from across the state and opened new opportunities for those who missed out due to COVID-19.  It further benefited him to meet people from across the state who are just as active in 4-H as he is, allowing him to network with State 4-H Teen Council members who he had only got to meet and see on a computer screen throughout the past year.  Staying on the campus of the University of Kentucky and staying in the dorms, he related that it gave him the feel for college life and allowed him to be independent.