Ohio State Extension Office

Today we talked to the people at the Ohio State Extension Office in Athens. His name was Rory Lewandoski. He is a Ohio State Extension Educator in Agriculture and Natural Resources. The mission is to "engage people to strengthen their lives and communities through research-based educational programming." The funding comes from federal, state, grants,county, revenue generation and recovery. They sell items such as brochures and educational information to recieve more funds. They use pre and post surveys in order to evaluate their programs. This also allows them to monitor their programs and track their effectiveness. This helps them see how much people have learned in the program. The plans come from many different ideas. Sometimes the state or university develops them and they are brought down to the other extension offices. They are also brought about by the needs of the community. If a lot of people are asking a certain question then they will try to have a workshop or education session about it. I think this is a good way to bring about education programs, because this aids in giving people what they want to know. The extension program offers a wide variety of programs from gardening to diabetes classes. I think it is impressive that they have so many programs on many different subjects. This allows many people to advantage of the programs depending on their needs. I was also impressed by all of the nutrition programs offered by the extension office. They have a person that is in charge of the nutrition programs for such things as thrifty shopping. All the people who work at the extension office have masters degrees unless they are volunteers. This allows the employees to teach the volunteers or others to have someone speak their language when they give a workshop. I think this is a great idea. People are much more willing to learn when someone speaks their language. I think the extension office is a great program. It has so many different people who have a variety of expertise. It is very community based because they are different depending on their location. This allows them to mold themselves to the community and give the community what they really need. I thought the extension office had many great things to offer. More people just need to be aware of what they do. I do not think most people know about the extension office, unless they were in 4-H or something else related to that. The extension office is a great resource for many community members. It is also good to know that there are sometimes registered dietitians on staff. This can help with such programs as dining with diabetes and thrifty shopping. They can also help evaluate what each community needs. It would be really interesting to go to one of their classes and see how it is run and attended. I think the extension office is a great resource for the community and more people should use it and be aware of the resources. It has so many potential benefits.