January Extension Connection 2024 Teaser

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Branching Out in 2023: Connections are Everything Hello friends and happy new year! As Sullivan County leaves behind 2023 and continues on the trail to 2024, we at Extension take pause to look back on the roots of our mission, and how much the branches of our programs have grown!

Perhaps we shouldn’t get sappy, but with 262 program offerings both in-person and virtually, over 2,400 hours of collective outreach by staff in all departments, and over 450,000 outreach contacts across the Hudson Valley Catskills region this past year, we can’t help but be weepy willows at how much we’ve branched out.

CCE Sullivan challenged itself in the wake of COVID to rethink its abilities and reach to support the needs of farmers and food producers, kids, families, and individuals in the community. Our Agriculture and Food Systems work took a huge leap forward with the creation of the Beginner Farmer Mentorship Program, set up to partner new farmers with experienced farmers for educational and funding opportunities. In addition, our Nutrition and Healthy Families department partnered with Garnet Health on the Fresh Rx Program, set up to tackle local food insecurity, healthcare costs, and diet-related issues with nutrition, physical activity courses, and incentives to purchase fruits and vegetables at farmers markets across the County.

The stable trunks of our Youth and Families Development initiatives have grown new branches, as we’ve partnered with Sullivan Allies Leading Together (SALT) to introduce the Community Prevention and Intervention Project (CPIP), bringing evidence based substance use prevention and youth and family development programs to Sullivan County schools, a welcome addition to our Drug Free Communities (DFC) coalition building work.

Alongside new programs, longstanding programs with deep-growing roots at Extension received their time in the sunlight for their accomplishments over the past year and beyond. The Creating Healthy Schools and Communities program celebrated 8 years of service with the ASCEND event, hosting more than 50 community partners for an open house highlighting all Extension has to offer. Young members of the 4-H Youth Development Program turned a profit of over $31,000 with their hard-earned produce and animal science projects at the Annual Agriculture and Livestock Auction at the Sullivan County Youth Fair. And more than $4,000 was donated to the new Hanslmaier-Sykes Livestock Program Fund to support 4-H youth participation in livestock programs like the 2024 Dairy Bowl. Additionally, the Taste NY program celebrated its tenth anniversary this year at the Hudson Valley Catskills Welcome Center with New York State Agriculture Commissioner Richard A. Ball as keynote speaker!

We’re happy to report that the changing colors of our leaves does not stop at our programming! Thanks to grant support from the NYS Department of Agriculture and Markets, we now have a Community Growers’ Garden at the Extension Center, and new kitchen equipment for Sullivan County kids to use in the Youth Building at the Sullivan County Youth Fair, hosted in partnership with the Grahamsville Little World’s Fair. The Extension Education Center is now host to a micro-biodigester for composting, bought in partnership with GrowingSOUL and the Town of Tusten for a zero waste food system demonstration project. And that’s not even mentioning the work our Staff Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee has done to craft our organization’s Equity and Justice statement, or the riddance of the Extension Connection magazine fee for online readers.

We could go on listing the work of our incredible staff and their programs this year, but there’s only so much space in this Annual Report Teaser. What little is left must be dedicated to you, our constituents! Without you, none of this would be possible! There are more than 114 rings on the CCE tree of service, but without the sunlight that you, our constituents, provide every day, of every week, of every month of the year, the flowers of our branches might never have bloomed! Thank you everyone who helped our branches to grow by engaging with and supporting Extension work in Sullivan County in 2023. We can’t wait for you to see us in the spring as our blossoms continue to grow.

Oh, and we’re not sorry about all the tree puns!

With all the love we have to give, Aaron D., Operations Coordinator & the CCE Sullivan staff team