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Brian: We have the Fall Harvest Experience here at the North Florida Research and
Education Center Suwannee Valley
where we highlighted
crops grown here in the Suwannee Valley region including corn, pumpkins, sorghum..
Our target audience is youth in the Suwannee Valley region and our goal is teach youth
where their food comes from,
how it's grown and why it's so economically important to this region.
Young people can come to this working farm
and they can pick their own pumpkin, they can walk through a cornfield, they get to sit
on a tractor and learn how a tractor runs, and they get to learn about
how corn is grown and the many products that it is used in.
This program has been a success. We've had over sixteen hundred young
people come through this is is less than a month.
All the kids of said they've enjoyed it and they loved and they can't wait
to go pick their own pumpkin; or they want to go back through the maze and run
through it again; and they definitely want to to come back next year and learn more about it.
We've had nothing but
positive feedback from our teachers. They they said it's been a enjoyable learning
opportunity. They've
gotten to learn outside of the classroom and also give their kids that
hands-on learning experience.
One of the added benefits of this program is
that we expose a lot more kids to the benefits of their county 4-H program.
We've even had a new 4-H club start as a result.
This program has been a collaboration between
multiple agencies including many of the local county Extension office in
North Florida, our local Farm Bureau and
local farmers have all
helped out to make this program run smoothly.
With kids so far removed from agriculture, we feel as extension agents, it's our
responsibility to teach them about the agriculture that's grown in the
region and to teach them about how food is grown and that it's not just something from the grocery store.
Narrator: In the Northeast District, agents are meeting the diverse needs of their
communities through
a variety of programs.
The Urban Tree Care program in the Duval County is a partnership between agent
Larry Figart and the Public Works Department of Jacksonville.
In just two years, the program has educated over one hundred county workers
and is now included as part of the orientation for all new parks
maintenance employees.
The program uses a combination of classroom lectures and hands-on learning
to train attendees on topics like proper pruning techniques.
In Nassau County,
Meg McAalpine's Medicare Education program is empowering
seniors and other medicare recipients
to make decisions about their benefits.
This free program started five years ago as part of a grant to educate residents
about Medicare, Part D.
Through classes
and one-on-one instruction, the program has educated more than five hundred people.
And in Suwannee and Duval counties, the Pastured Poultry program is giving
guidance to small-scale producers.
In just three years, Elena Toro and Brad Burbaugh created numerous
publications and presentations
a website
into virtual field day that offers information previously unavailable
to poultry farmers.
The program has received three national awards and it's been accessed by over one
hundred twenty five thousand online leaders