Our Impact
Making A Difference in Our County
University of Georgia Extension Hall County is working hard for its constituents. The following are examples of Extension’s impact in the county over the past year.
Agriculture and Natural Resources
The UGA Extension Agriculture and Natural Resources (ANR) program focuses on serving Hall County citizens through innovative programming and individual problem solving for farms, homes, and businesses by utilizing research-based information, specialists, and laboratory analysis.
The ANR program in Hall County reached 1,641 community members and agricultural producers through sixty-five gardening and agriculture programs in 2025. An additional 21,353 community members were reached through 287 agriculture events and fifty-eight farm and home consultation visits.
Hall County operates one of the largest Master Gardener Programs in Georgia. In 2025, 20 new Master Gardener volunteers were certified through a 12-week in-person training series. They joined the ranks of 134 active Master Gardener volunteers in Hall County. In 2025, Master Gardener volunteers contributed 13,348 hours of service with an estimated value of $427,136 for Hall County. Last year, these volunteers made 6,018 in-person contacts through classes taught or individual consultations, and 1,381 consultations by telephone or email. They implemented Spring and Fall Garden Expos, a Fall Garden Symposium, and numerous other community projects including Wilshire Park Educational Butterfly Garden, Linwood Nature Educational Preserve, Jubilee Community Food Garden, Cherokee Bluffs Educational Herb Garden, Longstreet 1875 Heritage History Garden, Good News at Noon Food Garden, North Hall Community Center Educational Pollinator Garden, Murrayville Park Educational Pollinator Meadow, Alta Vista Cemetery Garden and maintained a free-to-the-public seed library. Master Gardeners volunteered at Ask a Master Gardener booths at three Hall County farmers markets, hosted youth gardening in eight county and city schools, and volunteered at the youth education gardens, Gardens on Green, Lovett Literacy Garden, and BUGS (Brenau University). Master Gardeners held education outreach events at various locations across Hall County offering twenty-nine classes on horticulture topics.
Given that Hall County is an urban county that covers a large geographic area, and has a diverse population of over 217,000 citizens, media outlets are an effective way to reach a large audience. The Agent was a guest host five times on the live 2-hour, call-in, Saturday morning WDUN North Georgia "Home Grown" radio broadcast reaching a national listening audience of 1,500,000. Additionally, the Agent successfully published fifteen articles in the Gainesville Times print and online editions, with a combined subscribed readership and online audience of 17,280.
Family and Consumer Sciences
In 2025, the Hall County Family and Consumer Sciences (FACS) Extension program served the citizens in the community providing research-based information through partnerships established with over fifty local businesses, civic groups, schools, libraries, and non-profit organizations. Areas of education and services included chronic disease prevention, health and wellness, physical activity, food safety, food preservation, healthy homes, Radon testing, mindfulness, and financial well-being.
Programs for 2025 included ten health/nutrition/well-being presentations at the Hall County Senior Life Center, ten after-school nutrition and gardening programs for youth with the 360 Love Healing and Abundance program, eight programs at local libraries, and six programs for other local or state agencies. Additionally, the Hall County FACS Agent provided the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Program to 55 residents for an economic impact of $98,709.
4-H and Youth Development
In 2025, 1,300 youth participated in the Hall County 4-H program through school clubs, community events, and competitions in Cooking, Consumerism, Dairy, Forestry, Land, Livestock, Poultry, and Shooting Sports. Hall County 4-H clubs are in fifty-eight classrooms of fifteen elementary schools. There were eleven youth who participated in District Project Achievement with one advancing to State 4-H Congress. Nine students represented Hall County 4-H at the 4-H Day at the Capitol. Summer camp was attended by 210 youth at Rock Eagle 4-H Center, Burton 4-H Center, and Wahsega 4-H Center.
In 2025, 15 youth exhibited animals, including goats, dairy heifers, and beef heifers in multiple livestock shows. Additionally, the ANR Agent coached the Hall County Dairy Judging team. At the State Contest, the Junior and Senior teams both placed third in the state.