Summary
4-H is a community of young people across America learning leadership, citizenship and life skills.
4-H began a century ago as an educational program for the nation's rural youth. Today, 4-H meets the needs of and engages young people in positive youth development experiences. 4-H is the youth development education program of University of Nevada, Reno Extension.
4-H is the largest out-of-school youth organization in the United States with over 7 million members. There are over 49,000 young people engaged in 4-H programs across the state of Nevada. The 4-H program promotes life skills development through an expanding number of delivery modes: 4-H community and project clubs, military and 4-H after-school programs; special interest groups; school enrichment; camping and more.
4-H participants are all youth, ages 5 to 19, taking part in programs provided as the result of actions planned and initiated by Extension personnel in cooperation with volunteers. 4-H is characterized as being community centered, volunteer led, Extension staff supervised, research-based, home and family oriented, publicly and privately funded and responsive to change. It offers youth opportunities in communications, leadership, career development, citizenship, healthy living, science, technology, engineering and math and more.