Our Impact
Making A Difference in Our County
University of Georgia Cooperative Extension is working hard for its constituents. The following are examples of Extension’s impact in the county over the past year.
4-H Youth Development
In 2023, Augusta Richmond County served more than 2200 students in 19 area schools and the community. Students from elementary and middle schools received 4-H monthly where 96 club meetings were held. We also have our monthly Horse Club, Fishing Club and County Council Club. Students in all grades are taught effective leadership and presentation skills and compete at the district and state levels. Fourth grade students are provided a curriculum that focuses on the environment and agriculture while fifth grade focuses on science such as barrier islands and microorganisms. Middle school curriculum focuses on physical science and high school students focus on skills to prepare them for adulthood and team building skills.
Augusta-Richmond County 4-H added 11 new teen leaders to our Certified Teen Leaders Program, and we now have 23 active teen leaders who volunteered 235 hours at various events. We had 46 fourth, fifth and sixth grade students compete at Cloverleaf District Project Achievement and 5 ninth through twelfth grade students competed at Senior District Project Achievement at Rock Eagle 4-H Center. Dylan James, a twelfth-grade student, won first place at DPA (District Project Achievement) and advanced to State Congress where he won second place in the Performing Arts Drama Category. In 2023, Augusta-Richmond County 4-H received grants and donations from Bridgette Whittemore, Exchange Club of Augusta, Jefferson Energy Cooperative Foundation, and Richmond County Farm Bureau totaling close to $16,000. We had 68 students attend summer camps across the state of Georgia and were able to award 22 scholarships to assist with camp cost.
Agriculture and Natural Resources
Richmond County Agriculture and Natural Resources was very busy in 2023. A year after hosting two Master Gardener Extension Volunteer Trainings in 2022, Richmond County ANR decided to host another Master Gardener program in the winter of 2023. With the choice to take the class in evening two days a week, 35 people took part in the 2.5 hours of training per session for twenty sessions from January until March. The program graduated a fresh group of Master Gardeners that increase our active volunteer list to over 160 people. In the first year, the group accounted for over 2800 hours of community volunteer service. The Master Gardener Extension Volunteer training is so popular, that the office already has 34 people signed up to take the class in 2024.
Richmond County ANR helped host the 2023 ECO-Meet at Phinizy Swamp Nature Park which consisted of 31 middle school teams (124 youth) from 19 area schools with 42 volunteers to help with the event. Donations for the event from various vendors totaled $1,750 including a breakfast donated by the Augusta Area Master Gardeners at a value of $135.
During the calendar year of 2023, Richmond County ANR wrote 68 weekly newspaper articles for select Georgia and South Carolina newspapers as well as did 18 regional television placements discussing a variety of issues related to our field. Richmond County ANR was also featured on NPR’s On Point which is broadcast to all 50 states including 349 radio stations and a listening audience of 1.3 million. ANR also presented an additional 28 in-person sessions to different groups around the CSRA with 530 face to face contacts.
Family and Consumer Sciences
The year 2023 was quite promising for Richmond County Family and Consumer Science, having joined the Extension team October 2022. It started with getting to know the various Richmond County community partners, which ended the year with a total of 25 programs, 88 visits, and 749 direct contacts. This included invited educational talks to adults and youth, as well as potential stakeholders. This enabled FACS identify with the important pressing needs of Richmond County, which ranged from poor household kitchen hygiene, poor food handling practices, massive pressure/ struggle of food service establishments to keep (food service)
workers, increase in obesity among the population, more especially younger adults, and youth, poor eating habits among the population, especially teens/youth, Students (middle/high school) increasingly unable to study, to increasing feeling of hopelessness and sadness among several high schoolers. FACS has identified with specific programming activities (into 2024) to help tackle the (above-mentioned)pressing needs.
Richmond County FACS successfully attained terminal degree, some of which included 7 pieces of scholarly works that delivered direct engagement of 2991, and total circulation of 14,996. FACS also participated in Cloverleaf District Project Achievement (DPA) Food Fare Judge, Augusta Georgia - UGA GICH Committee Meeting/Site visits, as well as Food Access Stakeholders Augusta. Richmond FACS also provided 54 volunteer hours, most of which was for onion fund that raised $2,800. Richmond FACS participated in pieces of trainings, which would certainly strengthen the quality delivery of future programming efforts.
Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program
Richmond County Extension delivers nutrition education through the UGA Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP). EFNEP focuses on providing education in budgeting, diet quality, food safety, and food security. Federal, state, and local resources are merged to reach limited-resource families and teens in our community. In 2023, Richmond County EFNEP delivered Food Talk and Teen Cuisine programing while also participating in multiple outreach events. Additionally, Richmond County EFNEP continues partnering with 7 Richmond County schools and 18 adult community agencies. Through community partnerships, EFNEP resulted in 442 adult and youth graduates in 2023. Youth participation has already exceeded graduate goals in 2024, totaling 253 youth graduates. In addition, partnering agency volunteers donated $48,309.00 through in-kind service hours.