Rosenwald Center for 4-H Youth Development
| Facilities |
This facility located at 315 Maryland Avenue Frankfort, KY 40601 is a 15,000-square foot facility that was constructed with funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and completed in January 2013. The center has six classrooms, three observation rooms, four offices, one large multi-purpose room, one conference room, and a fully-certified kitchen. Its design allows Kentucky State University students to observe practices in teaching and learning in classroom settings.
In the newly-repurposed center, Dr. Travella Free, assistant Extension professor and
4-H youth development specialist, and her team develop and implement programs such
as 4-H Clubs, 4-H Camps, in-school and after-school programs to give youth safe and
supervised places to spend time and the chance to learn new skills, develop their
interests and spend meaningful time with their peers and mentors. These 4-H programs
are designed to serve children and youth in kindergarten through eighth grade. 4-H
enrichment activities focus on the sciences, health & well-being, and civic education
and will be delivered through curricula developed by KSU 4-H Staff and the National
4-H Council.
KSU professor Dr. Herman Walston is already utilizing the center. He was awarded a Capacity Building Grant through the USDA to implement an after-school mentoring program for African-American and Hispanic youth. Dr. Walston’s program aims to develop a positive youth development mentoring after-school program to serve 75 at-risk youth ages 10-17. It will also assist families of the youth maintain and increase parenting skills as well as provide learning experiences for KSU students studying early childhood development, family and consumer sciences, and food and agricultural sciences.
4-H is an important part of Cooperative Extension. More than 279,450 youth from all across Kentucky—approximately 35 percent of the K-12 population—participate in 4-H. Nationally, nearly 6 million youth participate in 4-H programs.