4-H Demographics

Man, oh man! I've been putting my research skills to work and have been uncovering some statistics for 4-H here in Hawaii. These stats aren't good. Basically, since 2005, Hawaii's enrollment in 4-H has decrease by almost 50% (from 18,552 to 9,437), and the enrollment numbers they had in 2005 weren't that good to begin with. Last night I decided to discuss this issue - in addition to the day's resignations - with my home-stay "mom," Helene, who happens to be the president of the Hawaii 4-H Alumni Association, has worked in 4-H/Extension for the majority of her career, and was even Interim State Leader for a short period of time. She said that Hawaii 4-H used to be in the 30-40,000 range. She wasn't aware of how low enrollment was as of last year, and was shocked/upset at the news. I don't blame her... this is everything she's worked for.

Some other statistics: National 4-H enrollment in 2005 was 6,534,822, in 2009 it was 6,019,021. This means Hawaii was pulling in 0.28% of the total enrollment in 2005, and 0.16% in 2009. The statistic that I found today shocked Gary the most (besides the dramatic drop in enrollment/involvement). The percentage of Hawaii's youth actually participating in 4-H in 2009 was only 3.79%. Gary isn't very optimistic that 2010 has been much better than 2009. It's sad because when he worked as State 4-H Leader in Nebraska it was up around 20% of Nebraska youth were involved, and here people seem more determined to make things difficult than to help him revive the program.

Like I've said before, we've got our work cut out for us! Wish us luck!