In this Issue:
- Family and Consumer Sciences -
celebrating 100 years of service
- Save time, freeze food for the holidays
- Eat healthy using spare change
- Remember November is diabetes awareness month
- 4-H Farm Friends exhibit educates the community
- Harvest Homecoming Festival
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Greetings!
Fall is here and we welcome you to the UGA Extension Gwinnett quarterly newsletter.
Articles are written by our extension agents to heighten awareness of fall activities in Gwinnett.
We hope that you enjoy reading this e-publication. Please help spread the word about everything we have to offer here at
UGA Extension Gwinnett.
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Family and Consumer Sciences -
celebrating 100 years of service
Boomer boys took shop and auto mechanics while young girls studied Home Economics. Girls were introduced to kitchens and stoves, fabric patterns, and the sewing machine. They were taught the basics of planning family meals, how to set the table properly, and how to diaper a baby doll. Until the Home Economics degree was established at UGA in 1918, women were largely banned from education and the workforce. Home Economics became the avenue for women to pursue higher education.
By the turn of the 20
th
century, young women were serving in education, research, and community outreach. Opportunities for women expanded, but Home Economics was still considered to be strictly "women's work." Then came the 1960s and 1970s feminist movement. Home Ec became less desirable as a profession because women wanted to accomplish more than what their mother’s had achieved in the past. Students needed to understand Home Ec was not just about cooking and sewing.
Changing the name seemed like a good place to start. In 1990, the UGA School of Home Economics became The College of Family and Consumer Sciences (FACS). Since then, the College has grown from 12 women 100 years ago, to approximately 1,400 undergraduates and 200 graduate students. Today, a multitude of FACS undergraduates are groomed (women and men) to use their training in the academic, scientific, industrial, medical fields, and the private sector.
The young women who studied Home Ec 100 years ago would be impressed at what their “Home Ec” has become today.
Sourced from: Spring 2017 Edition of
Boom
written by Theresa Rice
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Save time, freeze food for the holidays
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A hot bowl of homemade soup on a chilly day is so comforting, but finding the time to prepare it can be difficult. One easy solution is to freeze foods in advance. This will allow you to have your favorite homemade meals ready to heat and serve when you get home. When freezing prepared foods, keep the following in mind:
• After cooking the food, be sure it is cooled quickly to maintain safety and quality; freeze food as soon as it is packaged and sealed.
• Be sure to package foods for the freezer in moisture-vapor resistant materials to prevent freezer burn.
• Label each package with the name of the food, ingredients, packaging date, any special instructions (such as heating temperature and cooking time), and the number of servings.
Click
here
to research ingredients ahead of time to see what foods do not freeze well.
Click
here
to see any special instructions for freezing and preparing your product.
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Eat healthy using spare change
Planning your meals for the week will prepare you to grocery shop knowing exactly what you need. It will also keep you from buying unhealthy and costly snacks.
- To eat healthy on a budget, the USDA created the idea of the ‘Three P’s.’ Plan, Purchase, and Prepare your food.
- Make time in your busy schedule to plan out a week’s worth of breakfasts, lunches, and dinners for your family. It’s easier than you think and saves you time and money.
- Having easy and simple recipes will help you with the planning. The UGA Extension Extended Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP) web site offers some healthy, simple and budget friendly ideas for preparing delicious meals. To visit that website click here.
Want to see more spare change in your wallet? Ditch fast food, choose water over sugary drinks, and cover half of your plate with fruits and vegetables. Some lower-cost fresh vegetables are potatoes, lettuce, eggplant, cooking greens, summer squash, carrots, and tomatillos. The least-expensive fruits are watermelons, bananas, apples, pears, pineapples, and peaches, especially when they are in season.
Plant-based protein, such as beans, are money smart choices that stretch your dollars available for food. However, if you still crave the taste of meat, soups and stews are a good way to stretch small amounts of meat to feed a family on a budget.
Keep track of your finances to see how much you saved by planning meals ahead in comparison to your previous way of preparing meals. The health benefits will also be rewarding!
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Planting groundcovers
Do you have areas of your lawn where grass has difficulty growing? Too much shade, poorly drained soils, steep slopes, and other conditions can present a challenge to having an attractive lawn. If parts of your landscape are not suited to grass, consider planting ground covers which are small growing, ornamental plants.
Several groundcovers thrive in the shade. Liriope, sometimes referred to as monkey grass, is a perennial evergreen that flourishes in sites that receive minimal sunlight as well as full sun. It can tolerate drought conditions and both intense heat and cold but will suffer in soils that have poor drainage.
Several vines can be used as groundcovers. Confederate Jasmine is an evergreen with leaves that are 3 inches long with a lustrous dark green color. As a spreading groundcover, it grows up to 18 inches tall. The vine produces fragrant, small white flowers in the spring.
Groundcovers are an excellent alternative to lawns if you have areas where the grass is hard to grow or if you would like something different. If proper growing conditions become established, groundcovers are attractive and durable plants.
Timothy Daly is the
agricultural and natural resource agent
with UGA Extension Gwinnett and can be reached at
timothy.daly@gwinnettcounty.com
or 678.377.4010.
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Remember November is diabetes awareness month
Awareness is the first step to preventing and managing diabetes. November has been set aside to heighten awareness of this chronic disease. On Saturday, November 10, UGA Extension Gwinnett will staff a booth at a health fair designed to promote the prevention of diabetes and pre-diabetes. This free health fair, hosted by Gwinnett County Parks and Recreation, will take place from 10:00am to 2:00pm at Lucky Shoals Park, 4651 Britt Road, Norcross.
Join
us to learn how to protect you and your family from diabetes.
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4-H Farm Friends exhibit educates the community
Farm Friends, which took place at the Gwinnett County Fair from September 13-23, showed children and the overall community how to interact with animals and explore farmlife activities. The array of animals this year were small puppies, goats, donkeys, sheep, baby chicks, and calves. All eight puppies up for adoption found their forever homes! We would like to thank Mayfield Dairy for donating the half pint of milk for all of our visitors to enjoy as well as the giant cow on display outside the barn. We also appreciate our other sponsors, Farm Bureau, Color Burst Landscaping Company, Stewart's Feed and Garden Center, and Tractor Supply Company. Together, everyone made Farm Friends 2018 a major success!
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Awards and recognitions
Ines Beltran, Family and Consumer Sciences agent with UGA Extension Gwinnett received two first place awards for her work in teaching the "Aging with a Healthy Brain" class. She also received a first-place state and national award for her newsletter
Enlace;
a multi-state collaboration of authors written in Spanish. Ines also won second place in the state for teaching "A Better Breathing" program to child care providers. Way to go, Ines!
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Pam Bloch, 4-H agent for UGA Extension Gwinnett, received an Epsilon Sigma Phi Professional Development Fellowship award for her excellent work in youth leadership programming. The funds from her award will allow Pam to attend the National Urban Extension Conference in Washington State in May of 2019. Hooray for Pam!
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Cancer Prevention
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Free
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Wednesday, October 10
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10:00am – 11:00am
Taught in Spanish
.
UGA
Extension Gwinnett in partnership with Norcross First United Methodist Church will educate participants on the importance of early cancer screenings. This program will be held at Norcross First United Methodist Church located at 2500 Beaver Ruin Road, Norcross. For more information contact Natalie Robles at 678.377.4034.
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Portal de Salud Annual Health Fair
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Free
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Saturday, October 13
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9:00am – 3:00pm
UGA Extension Gwinnett in partnership with Portal de Salud Inc., will distribute material on how to prevent chronic diseases through a healthy diet. This fair will be held at Our Lady of Americas Catholic Mission located at 4603 Lawrenceville Highway, Lilburn. For more information contact Natalie Robles at 678.377.4034.
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Spring Flowering Bulbs
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Free
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Monday, October 15
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Noon – 1:00pm
Want to have a spectacular flowering display next spring? The fall is the best time of the year to plant spring flowering bulbs. UGA Extension Gwinnett Agent Timothy Daly will cover the many bulbs that thrive in our area and how to properly plant and care for them. The class will be held in the second floor conference room of the Gwinnett County Government Annex located at 750 South Perry Street, Suite 400, Lawrenceville. Pre-register by October 12 by contacting Rachel Warner at
Rachel.warner@gwinnettcounty.com
or 678.377.4010.
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Health and Wellness Fair
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Free
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Friday, October 26
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9:00am – 2:00pm
UGA Extension Gwinnett will demonstrate three different healthy recipes to interested health fair participants. This event, hosted by the Gwinnett Senior Centers, will be held at the Bethesda Senior Center located at 225 Bethesda Church Road, Lawrenceville. For more information contact Natalie Robles at 678.377.4034.
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Gardening with Native Plants
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Free
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Tuesday, October 30
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11:00am – Noon
Many plants that are native to our area are easy to grow and require minimal maintenance. UGA Extension Gwinnett Agent Timothy Daly will discuss native plants and how to grow them in the home landscape. The class will be held in the second floor conference room of the Gwinnett County Government Annex located at 750 South Perry Street, Suite 400, Lawrenceville. Pre-register by October 26 by contacting Rachel Warner at
Rachel.warner@gwinnettcounty.com
or 678.377.4010.
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Harvest Homecoming Festival
UGA Extension Gwinnett will staff a booth at the Harvest Homecoming Festival hosted by Gwinnett County Parks and Recreation. This event is in
celebration of Gwinnett's history of farming and the Bicentennial.
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UGA Extension Gwinnett offers educational programs, assistance and materials to all people without regard to race, color, national origin, sex or disability. An equal opportunity/affirmative action organization committed to a diverse workforce.
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