Proposal: Community Horticulture Extension work to reach underserved audience in Washington County ( )

Transcription

1 Proposal: Community Horticulture Extension work to reach underserved audience in Washington County ( ) Prepared by Dr. Pukhraj Deol, Urban and Community Horticulture Instructor In collaboration with Executive Board members, Washington County Master Gardener Association (WCMGA) Overall Goal: Special initiatives to expand reach of Master Gardener educational programs to serve diverse and traditionally underserved audience in Washington County Following underserved audience were identified: Community gardeners: Work already in progress and programs planned for 2015 to reach community gardeners through WA County MG Speakers Bureau School aged children: Limited outreach through individual efforts of a few Master Gardeners and children s activities at the demo garden during County fair. Different strategies and programs needed to make programs available for larger number of children. Low- income population: Seed to Supper Program in collaboration with Oregon Food Bank is helping to address gardening education needs of low- income population. Hispanic/Latino population: Programs at infancy. One bilingual Master Gardener recruited. Need for work on reaching these audiences, understanding their educational needs and planning programs accordingly. This plan includes: I. Background information on outreach to underserved audience II. Proposed work and anticipated budget for 2015 III. Bilingual Garden Educator fellowship, Community needs assessment Internship Garden education programs for underserved audience in WA County 2015 budget Recommendations for future work

2 I. Background information on outreach to underserved audience Community gardeners: Earlier this year Pukhraj Deol did a presentation on Vegetable Gardening Basics at the All Gardeners Season kick- off meeting. Hillsboro Parks and Recreation hosted this event for all their community gardeners to kick start 2014 gardening season. Keeping in view community gardeners interest in knowing more about various aspects of vegetable gardening, composting, soil management etc. Hillsboro Parks and Rec requested a Speaker Series for Lynn Cox has planned a Speakers Bureau series for 2015 gardening season. Events will be held at Hillsboro Main Library and Jackson Bottom wetland reserve. School- aged children Washington County Master Gardeners e.g. Jeannine Rychlik & Bill Klug are helping to run successful after school garden education programs for local schools. In addition there are fair- time activities for kids at WCMGA s demo garden. We get requests for volunteers from many local schools to lead their school garden programs. Many school garden programs face practical constraints like lack of consistent volunteer support and also that schools close during the peak gardening season. Therefore, alternative strategies and programs are needed to expand reach and provide opportunities for school aged children to participate in garden based learning. Based on this need, MG program is now initiating efforts in collaboration with OSU Extension 4- H program. We are planning a pilot program lead by Maureen Hosty (OSU Extension 4- H faculty) in which Master Gardener volunteers will train teen teachers who in turn will lead garden education programs for 5 th graders. This new approach with train the trainer model will expand reach of a few Master gardener volunteers who are skilled for teaching school children. The program will be delivered in 3 schools in Multnomah county (made possible by funding from Bob s Redmill). Resources are needed to initiate similar or other alternative efforts to expand garden education for school children in Washington County. Low- Income population: Almost 11 percent of Washington county s residents live below the poverty level.

3 Washington county Master Gardeners in collaboration with food bank are helping to address their need through Seed to Supper Program that teaches basic vegetable gardening skills to help participants stretch their limited grocery budgets. The Seed to Supper was recently awarded Search for Excellence award by OMGA gardener- seed- supper- receives- search- excellence- award The Seed to Supper curriculum has been translated into Spanish. Oregon Food Bank requested for bilingual Master Gardener volunteers to present Spanish version of the program in 2014 gardening season. Unfortunately, we have very few bilingual MGs, most of them have indicated low to medium fluency in Spanish and do not feel confident to volunteer as bilingual garden educators. Latino population: About 16 percent of Washington County s population is Hispanic/Latino. This percentage is even higher when looking at areas like Cornelius where 37.8% of population is of Hispanic or Latino origin. In fact we do not yet understand these audience, their educational needs and publicity or communication strategies to effectively reach them. I learned about these needs while attending some community meetings and then researching about the Washington County demographics. While networking and meeting community leaders in Forest Grove, I recruited bilingual volunteer, Alejandro Tecum, who completed 2014 Master Gardener Training. Alejandro lead hands on workshops on Starting Seeds and Container Gardening during Washington County fair. Collaboration with Washington County WIC and OSU Nutrition education program helped to publicize these workshops designed for both English and Spanish speaker audiences. WIC bilingual volunteers played key role in interacting with Latino fair goers and directing them to program venue. news/ fair- grows- more- enticements- for- latinos Alejandro also translated one of the Speakers Bureau programs Starting your vegetable garden into Spanish. However, the event hosted on a Saturday at Hillsboro Main Library failed to attract any audience. We now understand that different timings, locations and publicity strategies are needed.

4 We have access to some gardening resources in Spanish language e.g. a few OSU extension publications, Metro natural gardening resources and Seed to Supper curriculum. We are mainly limited by lack of bilingual Master Gardener volunteers to connect the Latino community with OSU and Metro gardening resources and to teach Seed to Supper classes in Spanish. II. Proposed work and anticipated budget for 2015 The efforts to reach these audiences through Master Gardener Program are still at infancy. Current strategic planning process has identified this need but the immediate focus of the Program is on the new model of Master Gardener Training. The limited Master Gardener program budget which hardly meets the programs operation costs and supports the ongoing program demands for local sources of funding to meet similar local needs i.e. expam=nding reach to underserved audience. We were very pleased to learn about the recent anonymous donation to WCMGA and availability of funds for garden based educational programs in Washington County. We proposed following work and anticipated budget to support the proposed work in 2015: 1. Bilingual Garden Educator Fellowship: A program to sponsor Master gardener Training for bilingual volunteers - $1350 (MG training cost for 3 candidates) Candidates will be selected through interview and fellowship offer is based on genuine interest in serving as a bilingual garden educator to expand reach of MG program to Latino/Hispanic audience in Washington County. 2. Community Needs Assessment through paid Internship (~$2000): These funds will enable us to sponsor a half- time intern (20- h/week) for 10 weeks period in summer Unpaid/volunteer internship might not be successful to attract candidates and the candidates working voluntarily may not meet our specific program needs so partial or full paid internships are a must to kick- start the proposed work and keep the momentum from this year s successful program at MG Demo garden during the Wa County fair. Pukhraj Deol is consulting with OSU on- campus resources and local community partners to explore possibility of matching funds to convert this internship into full- time (40-4/week) for 10 weeks. It is very important to inventory community organizations/programs supporting garden- based educational activities and knowing about their

5 audience to develop strategic community partnerships to reach diverse and underserved audience. For example there is no data available about demographics of community gardeners. Extension office often gets calls from people looking for space to garden. An inventory of all community gardens in Washington County will be very helpful. Internship recipients will be selected based on their interest, enthusiasm, bilingual skills to help with community needs assessment process. For example, reaching out to community gardeners through garden managers/coordinators and finding ways to learn more about community gardeners educational needs through interviews, surveys etc. reaching out to community gathering places for Latino audience e.g. community center, church etc. to connect them with bilingual Master Gardeners, OSU and Metro Spanish gardening resources, to gather feedback from community members on their educational needs and interests i.e. what type of programs will be best suited for them and what are the most effective ways to reach and engage their community members. 3. Gardening based educational programs for underserved audience in Washington County ($300 for teaching materials, additional budget estimate need consultation with MG volunteers/leaders). We recommend following educational programs for 2015 Programs during County Fair: Goal is to recruit Bilingual MGs to make all activities during county fair accessible to Latino audience. We recommend including participation in these specific event as a criterion/part of agreement for Bilingual Garden Education Fellowship (and also that existing bilingual MG, Alejandro be requested to save this date to help lead the activities like he did this year). We will continue collaboration with WIC volunteers to help with publicity through their clients and most importantly to engage Latino fair goes and send them to demo garden based activities. Also include additional signage in Spanish. Host Spanish and English Seed to Supper series in collaboration with Libraries or other suitable organizations to effectively reach low income audience among both English and Spanish speakers in Washington County.

6 2015 Budget Category Description Amount Sponsor MG Training for Cost of MG training for 3 candidates $1350 bilingual volunteers Sponsor Community Horticulture Intern 1 $ h/week for 10 weeks Exploring matching grant from OSU $2000 Teaching and publicity materials (Spanish Gardening programs) Networking, Education and outreach events to reach underserved audience in Wa County III. Hands- on activity/demo materials, print outs etc. To support Wa County based outreach activities for underserved audience by MG program or WCMGA e.g. Demo garden, Jenkins learning garden and Speakers Bureau events etc. Recommendations for future work $300 $1350 Continue proposed programs: We recommend continuing the special fellowship/internship and other programs in year Learning and experience from 2015 should be used to modify the work plan/strategies and budget as needed for Summer programs for school- aged children: We recommend following work through Jenkins Estate Learning garden MG activities: Develop connections with THPRD camp organizers/co- ordinators, Study ongoing camp programs/activities and in summer 2015 Propose Learning garden based educational activities to be included in 2016 summer camps. Apply experience from Multnomah county teens as teachers program of OSU Extension 4- H and Master Gardeners to plan programs for Wa County in 2016