BUCKHANNON – Upshur County 4-H is bringing back a popular scavenger hunt that began during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Craig Presar, Upshur County 4-H Extension agent, attended the Sept. 22 Consolidated Public Works Board meeting to request the use of the three city parks for a 4-H scavenger hunt.

“Oct. 2 through Oct. 8, 2022, is going to be National 4-H week, and as we come out of COVID and all the other excitement that brought, we find ourselves in a position where just like everybody else, we’re rebuilding,” Presar said. “We’ve lost some numbers, we had a whole half a generation of kids move through that we couldn’t get into club meetings and activities, so we’re trying to ramp that up a little bit this year. One of the things we’d like to do is on Sunday, Oct. 2, we’d like to host a scavenger hunt.”

This activity was something started when 4-H members could not have large group gatherings.

“We’d like to ask permission to use city parks, three of the city parks, as stops on the scavenger hunt,” Presar said. “It just started as a way to keep us spread out because we couldn’t have more than 20 people in one spot, so we thought if we want to have 50 people, we just spread them out around the county, and no one could slow us down that way, and it was a hit.”

Scavenger Hunt boards can be picked up from noon to 1 p.m. at Jawbone Park. Station activities will take place from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., and boards should be turned into the extension office by 4 p.m.

“The youth and their families will have that afternoon to move around the county and stop at various sites and they’ll be doing small, educational activities at each site,” Presar said. “We’re going to be doing small science experiments and arts and crafts experiments, some just for fun, one of them will probably involve either hot chocolate or cider or something like that. I’m here today to ask permission to use the three city parks, Jawbone, the city park itself and Cleveland Avenue.”

The board approved Presars’s request to use all three parks and proclaimed Oct. 2 through Oct. 8, 2022, as National 4-H Week.