For the 76th consecutive year, millions of youth, parents, volunteers and alumni across the country will celebrate National 4-H Week from Oct. 7-13. This year’s theme, Inspire Kids to Do, is a campaign that will give kids more opportunities to do, empowering them with the skills they need to succeed in life and career.

Throughout National 4-H Week, Marathon County 4-H will showcase the many ways 4-H inspires kids to do through hands-on learning experiences as well as highlight the remarkable 4-H youth in our community who work each day to make a positive impact on those around them.

4-H was founded on the belief that when kids are empowered to pursue their passions and chart their own course, their unique skills grow and take shape, helping them to become true leaders in their lives, careers and communities.

Marathon County 4-H will be celebrating at the club and county level. Marathon County 4-H will promote the ways to get involved on its Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts. Individual clubs will create promotional displays around the county. Both 4-H members and the public are invited to attend the local National Youth Science Day event which will be held in Wausau on Oct. 10. For more information visit marathon.uwex.edu.

“The 4-H youth experience is essential as it fosters independence, generosity, belonging and mastery through hands-on adult-youth partnerships,” said Kaitlyn Bernarde, Marathon County 4-H Program Coordinator.” For example, club officers, grades 8-13 plan all parts of their club calendar: the SMART goals, fundraising, recreation, and community service. As adults, we’re giving them the opportunity and responsibility to make decisions for themselves, their fellow members, and the community around them—preparing them to be our future leaders.”

The most popular Marathon County 4-H program we have is exhibiting at the Wisconsin Valley Fair in Wausau each August. This year we had over 700 youth show their projects ranging from their pet cat or dog to a woodworking project. A new program in the works is a teen leadership group with 4-H and non-4-H youth in Marathon County to strengthen their leadership and citizenship competencies through actual experiences.

4-H alumni around the country are always the first to acknowledge the significant positive impact that 4-H had on them as young people. In fact, research has shown that young people in 4-H are nearly four times as likely to contribute to their communities and are twice as likely to engage in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) programs during after school time.

In Marathon County more than 900 4-H youth and 400 volunteers from the community are involved in 4–H.

Also in October, 4-H National Youth Science Day will kick off on Oct. 1 and take place throughout the month. The 2018 4-H NYSD challenge, now in its 11th year, is called Code Your World, a computer science-themed challenge co-developed by Google and West Virginia University Extension Service.

Code Your World will teach kids a wide variety of skills in a four-part series that will enable them to apply computer science to the world around them. This hands-on experience includes a computer-based activity on Google’s CS First platform, as well as three unplugged activities that bring coding to life through games and interaction. Code Your World is perfect for first-time and beginner coders, ages 8 to 14.

To learn more about 4-H and 4-H National Youth Science Day, please visit http://www.4-h.org.