January 2025 Issue

President’s Message 

Happy New Year!

This is a fun time of the year. It’s the start of the month, the year, the quarter. Everything is fresh, we are full of hope for the coming year, and the possibilities seem endless. I hope your 2024 holiday season was fun and the start of 2025 has been kind.

As we look ahead, in just a couple of months, we will have the opportunity to travel to Trinidad and Tobago for the Caribbean Association of Home Economics 25th Biennial Conference. This conference will be held April 13-16, 2025, and early registration pricing ends January 31, 2025. The theme is “Home Economics, AI, Values, and Attitudes: Interrogating the Nexus.” There are many excursions and workshops to enhance your cultural education, so take advantage of this opportunity. It will be here before we know it!

Thank you to all our members for supporting IFHE and IFHE-US. Our work in the US and globally is critical to empowering the lives of individuals, families, and communities through sustainability, workforce development, and stakeholder engagement.

Happy January!

Nina Roofe

President, IFHE-US

Our current way of living and consuming is unsustainable. We use more resources than the Earth can provide and often more than is good for us. This overconsumption leads to health and financial problems, climate change, loss of biodiversity, and pollution. It's time for a change.

Key Areas for Change

1. Food: Shifting to a more plant-based diet can reduce emissions and improve health.
2. Housing: Consider how much space we really need, use sustainable energy, and adopt eco-friendly technologies.
3. Travel: Support and use more sustainable transportation options.

Home economics can help guide these changes, making it easier for everyone to live sustainably and enjoy a good quality of life.

Remember: Tackling consumption isn't about sacrifice – it's about creating a better life for all of us and for future generations.

Read the IFHE Statement “Tackling Consumption for a Better World"

Watch and use the IFHE Video “Tackling Overconsumption” to promote WHED 2025.

Review an Introduction to WHED 2025 “Tackling Overconsumption”

2025 IFHE-US Dues

All IFHE-US Members whose dues expired December 31, 2024 have been sent an email reminding them to pay 2025 Dues. Thanks to those who have already sent checks or completed payment on the IFHE-US website (www.ifheus.org). You will receive a receipt soon as payments were not deposited or transferred to our bank account until January 2025.

IFHE Membership Dues (except for 4-Year Dues) are based on a calendar year (January –December), so regardless of when you paid the 1-year, student or organizational dues for 2024 they expired on December 31. If you have a question about your dues, email me at the address below.

The IFHE-US dues information was included on the 2025 IFHE-US Membership Brochure sent with the email. The IFHE EURO Rate for Individual Dues increased from 70 EUROS in 2024 to 80 EUROS for 2025. When you pay your dues to IFHE-US, we will send Bonn the 2025 EURO rate so you are able to access the IFHE website for all international information. The IFHE-US Executive Committee

decided NOT to increase the USD dues rates for 2025.

We will send Bonn the 2025 EURO conversion and the small amount IFHE-US keeps pays for operating, including Wire Fees for Dues Transfer to Bonn, the ZOOM account, the Newsletter App, UN Membership for IFHE-US UN Delegate, FCS Alliance Membership, Annual 990 CPA Filing, D&O Liability Insurance, and other operating expenses such as copies, postage, and State Non-Profit Registration. Thanks for paying your dues directly to IFHE-US which helps cover these costs of operating our non-profit association.

We report IFHE-US dues payments to Bonn monthly so they have the current membership for IFHE-US by March 31. In years when IFHE-US Delegates are selected for Council Meetings (held every 2 years) the Delegate number is based on membership with paid dues as of March 31. When you select Membership on the IFHE-US website, you will see the Membership Brochure which you can open and print to complete if mailing payment; or if paying on-line, please also email me your current contact information as listed on the brochure so the membership roster

is updated.

If you have paid on the IFHE-US website previously you select the LogIn option; if this is your first time to pay on website - you select the Join Now to set up a user name and password. We are NOT linked to the Bonn website. You can choose to use the same Login as Bonn – BUT you still need to set it up the first time on the US website. If your employer is paying the dues and they need a W9,email me who needs to receive the form.

There is information in the brochure about the IFHE Young Professionals Network (YPN) which is open to all. YPN embraces the ideas of being young in age, young in profession and/or in the organization, or young in mind. That means everyone is eligible. To be included in the YPN list serve, check the box below the membership form or email me. For more information on YPN, contact Kathryn Carroll, IFHE-US YPN Director (kcarroll5@uca.edu). They will have some great activities planned for the coming year.

If you have previously paid 4-Year dues and aren’t sure of your expiration year - email me. Only those with 2024 expiration have received the December email with 2025 Dues Notification.

Luann Boyer, IFHE-US Director, Finance

Email: Luann.boyer@colostate.edu; Phone: 970-768-0322

‘Make 2025 New Beginning, Not as World Divided but as Nations United,’ Secretary-General Urges in New Year Message

Dear Fellow IFHE-US members:

As we start the New Year 2025, I wanted to share this inspiring message from the UN Secretary-General António Guterres. It is available at https://press.un.org/en/2024/sgsm22512.doc.htm

Let us each promote peace, love, and support for one another and carry these beliefs to be practiced in our homes, communities, states, and throughout our country of the United States of America.

Sincerely,

Susan Shockey, IFHE-US United Nations Chair

“Throughout 2024, hope has been hard to find. Wars are causing enormous pain, suffering and displacement. Inequalities and divisions are rife — fueling tensions and mistrust. And today I can officially report that we have just endured a decade of deadly heat. The top ten 10 hottest years on record have happened in the last 10 years, including 2024. This is climate breakdown — in real time. We must exit this road to ruin — and we have no time to lose. 

In 2025, countries must put the world on a safer path by dramatically slashing emissions and supporting the transition to a renewable future. It is essential — and it is possible. Even in the darkest days, I’ve seen hope power change. I see hope in activists — young and old — raising their voices for progress. I see hope in the humanitarian heroes overcoming enormous obstacles to support the most vulnerable people. I see hope in developing countries fighting for financial and climate justice. I see hope in the scientists and innovators breaking new ground for humanity. And I saw hope in September, when world leaders came together to adopt the Pact for the Future. 

The Pact is a new push to build peace through disarmament and prevention. To reform the global financial system so it supports and represents all countries. To push for more opportunities for women and young people. To build guardrails so technologies put people over profits and rights over runaway algorithms. And always, to stick to the values and principles enshrined by human rights, international law and the United Nations Charter.  There are no guarantees for what’s ahead in 2025. But I pledge to stand with all those who are working to forge a more peaceful, equal, stable and healthy future for all people. Together, we can make 2025 a new beginning. Not as a world divided. But as nations united.”

25th Biennial Conference of the Caribbean Association of

 Home Economists Inc.

13th -16th April, 2025

“Come leh we go to TrinBago,” the most southerly of the Caribbean islands and

considered the “Best” of the West Indies. Home of Carnival, the greatest show on Earth, we invented Steelpan, Calypso, and Soca. Home of Queens Janelle Penny Commissiong, Giselle LaRonde, and Wendy Fitzwilliam, King of Cricket, Brian Lara, Mighty Sparrow, Calypso Rose and Machel Montano, industrious Trinidad will captivate your senses with visits to the Caroni Bird Sanctuary, The Temple in the Sea, The Pitch Lake, Mud Volcanoes, Fort George, the Pan Yards Port of Spain, capital city at night. Serene Tobago will have you awe-struck with its beautiful flora and fauna, rain forest, white sandy beaches, world-famous Buccoo Reef and Nylon Pool. Cosmopolitan in nature, every creed and race find an equal space. So, if you are looking for sweetness to put inside your basket of life, take a little runaway, so we can inject you with some ‘Freedom in yuh DNA.’

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