With a renewed interest in home gardening and purchasing local food across North Carolina comes renewed consumer interest in preserving food at home, through canning, freezing or drying North Carolina Cooperative Extension centers are responding to this interest by offering canning classes across the state.

Once a hallmark of extension programming through Tomato Clubs for girls, canning and other home food preservation techniques had largely fallen out of favor with consumers in recent years. But this year, Cooperative Extension centers are reporting enrollment in canning workshops is up, and many extension agents are adding classes to accommodate demand.

Cabarrus County has scheduled nine workshops, up from the usual four, and all filled quickly. Several television news groups taped the Cabarrus workshops to use as on-air instructional pieces. Five workshops will be offered in Lee County, including one focusing on canning green beans and two on canning tomatoes. In Buncombe County, workshops are scheduled throughout the summer produce season on canning strawberry jam, dill pickles and relish and tomatoes, along with several lectures on home canning.

The country's economic downturn has left many families scrambling to deal with personal and financial crises. To help, North Carolina Cooperative Extension has developed a Web site, "Take Control," that provides peer-reviewed fact sheets offering a number of suggestions on how to cope with economic hardship.

The fact sheets, available on the Web site www.nctakecontrol.com, were developed by N.C. Cooperative Extension family and consumer sciences specialists in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State University. The fact sheets include tips on saving money, talking to children about the economy, shopping for healthy foods on a tight budget, avoiding home foreclosure and many other timely topics.

A camera crew from the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services, a group working with AARP, came to Statesville after the workshop to interview Simmons, Suzanne Black of AARP-North Carolina, the Thorlo wellness coordinator and an employee who benefited from the workshop. The video will be featured during an online training program Sept. 17, 1-2 p.m. The link to the training site is:
http://www.blsmeetings.net/caregivers/about/index.cfm

In her 30 years as a nutritionist and now an extension agent, she has helped teach people how to eat better, cook more safely - and ultimately live better lives.

"I always was drawn to the area of public health and nutrition," she said.

Kent, 54, is the Stokes County agent for Family & Consumer Sciences at the N.C. Cooperative Extension Office, where she has worked since 2005.

Read more in the Winston-Salem Journal

U.S. soldiers serving in the Middle East may soon thank Pasquotank County for cooler collars. Pasquotank County’s Extension and Community Association teamed up to hand-sew 100 reusable neckbands that hold moisture-retaining crystals. When soaked in cool water and worn around the neck, the neckbands cool the wearer. Service members receive theirs for free, but similar models retail for up to $13.

In addition to the 100 bound for the Middle East, an additional 30 neckbands are destined for those fighting wildfires in Tyrrell County.

For more than 80 years, the N.C. Extension and Community Association has worked to strengthen families and improve the quality of life within our communities. Pasquotank ECA members range in age from 14 to 90 years.

Mallner, a senior in nuclear engineering at N.C. State University, is a former 4-H'er from Wilmington who serves as a volunteer 4-H sewing teacher. She presented a 100 percent black wool knit formal gown embellished with embroidery and Swarovski crystals. She received the Embroidery Award of $500 from Creative Machine Embroidery Magazine and received Honorable Mention recognition.

Linton, a 4-H’er from Mt. Olive, is a high school sophomore. She competed in a 100 percent wool rust and black boucle fitted jacket and rust wool flannel slacks. She received a $250 award for Exemplary Construction by Claire Shaeffer for use of a Claire Shaeffer Pattern. She also received Honorable Mention recognition.

AGHE confers Fellowship status in recognition of outstanding leadership in gerontology and geriatrics education by established scholars and educators. Fellowship status is open to individuals with well-established careers of achievement in gerontology/geriatrics education who are employed by an AGHE member institution.

Qualifications include outstanding achievement in teaching, scholarship and research on educational issues, influential research publications or theoretical contributions used in gerontology/geriatric education and training, or leadership in administration and funding of gerontology/geriatrics educational programs, including development of new programs.

The 2008 Priester National Extension Health Conference theme, “Building Healthy Communities, One Person at a Time,” celebrates Cooperative Extension's long history of promoting health and preventing disease for individuals of every age and background, in families of all types, living in rural, suburban, and urban communities. The conference showcases the successful programs of Extension professionals, their community and organizational partners and their students.

"There's a lot of Hispanics from everywhere here," she said, mentioning there are immigrants from places like Puerto Rico, Cuba and Mexico.

That presence was evident at the Infant of Prague Church's Parrish Hall on Sunday, where the Onslow Hispanic Latino Association hosted its fourth annual Dia de la Raza, or Day of the Race, a celebration of local Hispanic culture.

(Note: Ana Rosa Reyes, who provides administrative support for Cooperative Extension in Onslow County, was one of two recipients of the Amigo Award presented at this event.)

Read more from jdnews.com

Just a year after it was officially approved and open to students, a joint parenting education program between N.C. State University and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro awarded its first degree this spring. Stephanie Jones is the first graduate to earn a master of science degree in human development and family studies, with a concentration in family life and parent education, from both universities.

Jones began work on the degree requirements in fall 2003 when the first class was offered, before the degree was formally approved. A former parent educator with North Carolina Cooperative Extension in Brunswick County, she commuted three and four hours from her home to N.C. State and UNCG to complete the degree.

Welcome to one of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences' newest "structures," the Structural Pest Control Training and Research Center at the College's Lake Wheeler Road Field Laboratory.

Read more in Perspectives magazine.

How should parents handle a whining child? What can they do to make a smooth transition to home after picking a child up from day care? What safety advice should parents share with teens before the high school prom?

Dr. Karen DeBord, parenting specialist with North Carolina Cooperative Extension at North Carolina State University, helps answer these and other questions in eight-minute segments that air Mondays at 8:08 a.m. on WPTF radio in Raleigh.

Rainwater was employed by the N.C. Cooperative Extension Service in Wilson County from 1934 to 1946.

Read more in the Wilson Daily Times.

The men come in quietly, signing the class register at the front of the room before finding a seat in one of the plastic chairs. Though they nod at one another, there’s not much conversation between them as they wait for class to start.

These men have some things in common: Each of them have made mistakes in life which have brought them to this place, the Neuse Correctional Facility in Wayne County.

And each of them is a parent.

It is this latter tie that brings them to this small room on a blustery cold winter night in late February, during their few hours of free time allotted them per day. Instead of watching television, shooting basketball hoops, hanging out with other inmates, or relaxing from their day job – many are in a work release program- these men have chosen to attend a parenting class.