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July-Aug, 2023
Volume 4, Issue 4
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Working to improve lives, communities, the environment, and economies throughout Pima County. | | |
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Youth Learn Through Tucson Village Farm Outdoor Education
Outdoor education and leadership play vital roles in our 4-H programs, offering numerous benefits to youth as they build valuable skills, self-confidence, and a deeper connection to nature. Tucson Village Farm (TVF) began 13 years ago with the mission of connecting young people to a healthy food system and empowering them to make healthy life choices. Several years ago, kids began expressing a desire for outdoor programming so now TVF offers amazing outdoor adventure camps including caving, hiking, backpacking, bikepacking, and most recently, river rafting. One camp that deserves special recognition is our backpacking camp, which took place in late June. The adventure began at the 4-H Ropes Course, where teenagers honed their communication and problem-solving skills. Afternoons were spent preparing camping meals for the subsequent 3-day, 2-night camping, and backpacking experience on the Arizona Trail on Mount Lemmon. Participants enjoyed thrilling and safe outdoor adventures, including magical night hikes and visits to breathtaking locations, while also learning essential skills like navigation using maps and compasses. In the final evaluations, campers shared their thoughts, expressing sentiments such as "Being in nature opens my mind and brings a sense of calm within a stressful life" and "Experiences like this help us learn to build community and challenge us to be more self-reliant." They emphasized that the camp provided them with chances to challenge themselves, communicate with others, collaborate, and persevere when confronted with difficulties. What we have seen, time and time again, is that when teens engage in outdoor activities together, participants form strong bonds, practicing empathy, support, and collaboration. They learn to be inclusive, encouraging one another to step out of their comfort zones and try new things. Through outdoor education and leadership opportunities, 4-H programs empower youth to believe in their own potential, cultivate important life skills, and become responsible citizens who appreciate and protect the natural world. Stay tuned for what lies ahead—it's always something exciting at Tucson Village Farm.
Photo: 4-H Youth learn team-building skills at the ropes course before heading out on a backpacking adventure.
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Pima Extension Shows Excellent Numbers for 2022
Director's Note
In 2022, Pima County Cooperative Extension increased outreach and hours of service by over 50 percent. Not only did we return to in-person programming, but we maintained many of the virtual education options and as a result, our team of approximately 50 people provided over 100,000 hours of programming with nearly 36,000 engagements across all program areas. A closer look shows that growth is strongly linked to rebounding funding levels. In 2022, Pima County increased its financial support and Pima Extension faculty and leads did an outstanding job of obtaining grants and contracts, bringing our totals up by nearly 70% as compared to 2021. Highlights like these can be found in our 2022 Annual Report, just released digitally and available at our offices. Our Extension goal is to provide practical information and education to help people make their lives better. Please take a few minutes to page through the report to get a feeling for the breadth of our programs and to learn about some of our new efforts, such as ranch education for 4-H youth, invasive species outreach to help preserve our fragile deserts and the “Down to Earth Dads” workshops at the Arizona State Prison Complex-Tucson. Please also join me in thanking our many volunteers, advisory board members, and community partners that help extend our reach and connect us to our stakeholders. 2022 was an outstanding year and we are so grateful for your support and connection to Pima Extension!
Claire L. Zucker
Director, Pima County Cooperative Extension
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Pima EFNEP Grows Family & Youth Nutrition Education
Pima Extension’s Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP) is a community-based, relationship-driven, hands-on educational program designed to assist limited-resource families. The program helps SNAP and WIC-eligible families and youth learn how to eat healthier on a budget, improve their food safety, increase their physical activity, and connect with their community resources to improve food access. EFNEP courses offer a space for conversation and collaborative learning. To serve our community’s great need, the program is free of charge; focussing on helping parents and their kids make small, sustainable changes for long-term success. Sustained learning helps people incorporate new habits into their daily lives, so adults sign up for weekly one-hour classes for eight weeks, while youth sign up for weekly one-hour classes for six weeks. The process of learning over time helps reinforce skills, allowing time for people to apply the ideas and come back to discuss successes and challenges. EFNEP reaches out to people by holding classes in a variety of locations, such as community centers, family resource centers, schools, places of worship, and our Cooperative Extension office. Participants gain new tools to lead healthier lives, and when they complete the series, they receive a Certificate of Completion from our University of Arizona Cooperative Extension office. EFNEP is funded by the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture through the UA Cooperative Extension offices statewide.
Learn more at Pima County EFNEP
Photo: Pima EFNEP/Menlo Park Family Resource Center in June 2023
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Master Gardeners Build Water-smart Skills with Smartscape
Pima Smartscape teaches people about using sustainable irrigation practices and low-water-use landscaping to create great-looking, resilient outdoor spaces. What better place to spread the word than close to home with the Pima Extension Master Gardener program. As part of the Intergovernmental Agreement with its sponsor, the City of Tucson Water, Smartscape provides up to eight no-cost classes per year specifically for the Master Gardeners (MG). MGs are also welcome to attend Smartscape residential and professional community outreach classes, which are free to all participants. Smartscape gears classes particularly for Master Gardeners. For instance, recently one of the MG demonstration gardens developed a leak, so Smartscape quickly organized a class to address it. After the Smartscape instructor José Cano detailed how to install and maintain a drip irrigation system, the class was very interactive with many MGs asking questions or sharing their previous experiences with systems they were unable to fix. Next, José described how he knew there was a leak and some common ways to troubleshoot the issue. Then he and the MGs worked together to repair the system. José said the MGs were great participants because of their excitement to learn and willingness to participate. The MGs reported that the class was excellent and they were hopeful that in the future they would be able to replace old materials and fix problems quickly so that water would not be wasted.
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Mobile Produce Program Works to Alleviate Food Insecurity
Even though most people in Pima County live in urban locations, food insecurity is a problem because access to food is not equitably available. Generally, less-resourced populations face more barriers to accessing fresh foods and are at increased risk for malnutrition. To explore this issue in urban Pima County, four focus groups were held in 2022 that engaged 74 Tucson residents, including 49 SNAP-eligible individuals. Although grocery store options were identified as accessible, the availability and quality of foods available at those stores were cited as concerns. Transportation was frequently cited as a primary factor influencing where and when community members could access food. In response, The Garden Kitchen launched a mobile produce program to help bring fresh food to people who need it. In the pilot program, residents of Tucson House were invited to sign up for a six-week reduced-cost community-supported agriculture (CSA) share, provided by Tucson CSA, accompanied by six weeks of nutrition and wellness education provided by Cooperative Extension staff. In addition, The Garden Kitchen partnered with Tucson Village Farm to pilot a reduced-cost produce market at Tucson House for five weeks in July. The Garden Kitchen intends to continue to pilot the mobile produce market program at additional locations through the summer and fall before launching a larger program in 2024.
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Green Valley Master Gardeners Reach Out
to Veterans
Did you know there are two groups of Master Gardeners (MGs) at Pima County Cooperative Extension? We have a very active group of 30+ MGs working from the Pima Extension satellite office in Green Valley, Arizona (530 E Whitehouse Canyon Road) They answer community questions, run the Green Valley plant clinic, conduct outreach, preschool classes, in-house parent/child garden classes and more! The MGs maintain a quarter-acre demonstration garden with individual growing spaces for vegetables, florals, orchards, cacti, and grapes and demonstration areas for propagation, xeriscape, butterfly, wildflower, and patio specialty gardens. An exciting new project for this office is called Operation New Leaf, and it is a brainchild of Master Gardener and Air Force veteran David Duffy. This is an educational/growing garden for the wonderful men and women who served in our armed forces. Through the program, Individual veterans, on a rotating basis, will have access to an eight-foot trough container garden for a year. MGs provide hands-on training and encouragement, and each participant has free access to the growing materials and the training they need to be successful gardeners. A mural with military emblems, flags, and cheerfully painted tables enhances the space to make a welcoming social area and we hope they will take their skills and knowledge home to share with others. Be on the lookout for the grand opening of “Operation New Leaf” and thank a veteran!
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Animal Science Training Brings New Ideas to 4-H
In June, 4-H Assistant Agent Ashlea Gideon had the opportunity to attend a 10-day curriculum training for animal science called CASE, Curriculum for Ag Science Educators, which included many skills that are typically used in high school agriculture classrooms. Topics ranged broadly to include the history and use of animals, animal handling and safety, animal cells and tissues, nutrition, reproduction, genetics, and health and animal products/selection/marketing. Some of the hands-on lessons include dissecting the female reproductive tract of livestock, building a model of the ruminant digestive system, looking at animal cells under a microscope, building feed rations, and so much more. Ashlea plans to take some of the lessons and adapt them for 4-H use supporting project areas that are prominent in Pima County 4-H. The primary project topic in Pima County is livestock and although many kids raise and show production livestock animals at the fair developing curriculum that incorporates CASE topics can provide youth with more hands-on opportunities to understand their animals. Ashlea hopes that this curriculum will bridge the gap between the youth and their livestock production projects. Her goal is for youth to be submerged in the project area, understanding the animals from pasture to plate.
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Join the Tick Patrol
Ticks aren’t just an issue back East – they are in Arizona too! You may know that ticks are small blood-sucking critters, but are you aware that they can spread diseases to humans and animals when they bite? The most common tick in Arizona is the brown dog tick. They can transmit Rocky Mountain spotted fever, a serious disease marked by a fever and rash in Arizona and northwest Mexico. Learn about the Great Arizona Tick Check and use these helpful tips about how to reduce tick bites.
Brown dog ticks spend most of their lives resting off their host animal. Reduce clutter, tall grasses, and brush from around the outside of your home, wash your pet’s bedding, and vacuum regularly.
- When you're outdoors, wear long-sleeved shirts and long pants and use an EPA-registered tick repellent.
- Check yourself and your family for ticks. Use tweezers to grab ticks close to the skin and gently pull straight up to remove instead of squeezing, burning, or smothering.
- Consider treating with tick pesticides around the outside of your home but be sure to hire a professional or follow application instructions carefully.
- Did you find a tick on your dog? Kill it by using topical (spot-on) treatments, oral medications, and a tick collar. Wear gloves and follow label directions regarding how often you should repeat treatments.
Article contributed by UA faculty member Dr. Lucy Li lucyli@arizona.edu.
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Congratulations Ashlea Gideon
We are very excited to announce that Ashlea Gideon has been hired as our 4-H Assistant Agent for the Pima Extension 4-H club program. Ashlea joined us as an Assistant in Extension in September 2021. She quickly stepped up and enthusiastically demonstrated her love of youth development and livestock and her strong connection to our many volunteers. Ashlea is a native Arizonan, growing up in Buckeye, Arizona. She earned both her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Agriculture and Extension Education at New Mexico State University. Pictured here with a well-deserved thank you from one of her clubs, we are very excited to have her join us as our new 4-H Club agent.
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Happy Retirement to Kim Schmieder
Kim Schmieder, Community Nutrition Educator for Pima County EFNEP (Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program) retired on June 30, 2023. After almost 27 years of dedication to the community, Cooperative Extension, and the University of Arizona. She finally gets to spend ALL of her time enjoying the company of her family and friends! We appreciate the kindness, gentleness, sense of humor, and deep program knowledge she shared with us for all these years! There is no doubt she will be missed by her colleagues, community partners, and participants (youth and adults). We wish her an amazing retirement full of wonder and fun (and relaxation).
Thank you Miss Kim and… Happy Retirement!
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Welcome Meredith Glaubach
Welcome Meredith Glaubach to The Garden Kitchen! Meredith’s passion is food justice and focused on food studies in her Gender Studies and Environmental Studies degrees. She joins PCCE after spending many years at the Community Food Bank. In her new position, she will be working on developing local food systems, including creating a path for small farmers to sell produce in low-income neighborhoods as well as making The Garden Kitchen’s commercial kitchen available to developing value added food businesses.
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Welcome Grace
Welcome Grace Born to The Garden Kitchen! Grace is passionate about food security and health equity. She is originally from Tulsa, Oklahoma, where she was first exposed to the complexities of community food systems and came to Tucson in 2019. Grace joins Pima Extension after being a Farmers Market Manager, serving as a liaison between local farmers and consumers. In her role at The Garden Kitchen, she will focused on policy, systems, and environmental changes to increase equity of health choices for residents of Pima County.
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Welcome Moonie Tyler
Tucson Village Farm has seen a growth spurt with FIVE new staff members joining the team this year. What does that mean for TVF? More programs, more camps, more IMPACT! Moonie Tyler is the most recent hire, and she was hired as their Camp Program Coordinator. She will be in charge of summer camps and will be creating new weekend programs in the Fall. She's an incredible artist and surely will have her hand in our budding art program as well. Moonie is a desert transplant coming all the way from Virginia, and she's called Tucson home now for five years. If you see her, give her a warm hello!
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UArizona Pima County Cooperative Extension
Programs and Upcoming Events
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Pima County Cooperative Extension
Website | 2021 Annual Report
Main Office: 4210 N Campbell Ave., Tucson, AZ 85719-1109
Green Valley Location: 530 E Whitehouse Canyon Rd
South Tucson, The Garden Kitchen: 2205 S 4th Avenue
Email: pcce@arizona.edu
Our Main Office on Campbell is open M-F 8:30 - 4:30
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