2. What are Monday Meetups?
Focused on Nutrition and Physical Activity supports for direct-ed (PSE topics)
Meant to provide:
• Platform for sharing projects and asking questions
• Information onTNCEP allowable funds and resources
• Peer & professional speakers
• Links to resources
• Ways to assess and report impact of the project
3. What are Monday Meetups?
• February 8th: Gardens
• March 8th:Walking Initiatives
• Speaker/Feature- Belinda Riddle, ExtensionAgent, Story book trail
• Speaker- CameronTaylor, Healthy Development Coordinator-TDOH
• April 12th:TBD (Based on Feedback)
• May 10th:TBD (Based on Feedback)
4. Today’s Agenda
• How Community Gardens fit withTNCEP initiatives (WHY,WHERE, HOW)
• Gibson County (Featured Garden)
• Seth Whitehouse- Master Gardener
• Demonstrating Impact/Reporting
• Feedback Survey
5. Why Community Gardens andTNCEP?
• “Beneficial activity that leads to the
economical production and consumptions of
healthy fresh food.”
• Connects well withTNCEP Nutrition
Education Programs
• Benefits of community gardens include:
• Increased consumption of fresh fruits and
vegetables
• Physical activity opportunities
• BONUS:Outdoor activity that allows for social
distancing
Source: https://www.cdc.gov/healthyplaces/healthtopics/healthyfood/community.htm
6. Where canTNCEP Support Gardens?
• Gardens in qualifying census tract or block
group
• 50% Limited Resource Population
• 2019 County Folders
• Gardens in our schools
• In qualifying census tract OR 50% students
receive free or reduced lunch
7. How can Agents & PA’s Work with
Gardens?
• Assist sites in the planning and coordination
• Assist sites in the cultivation of foods, garden maintenance
• Assist sites in the distribution of produce, help them develop a distribution plan
• Encourage integration of garden produce into food services
• Connect gardens with community sites to distribute produce (food pantries, churches
etc.)
8. How can Agents & PA’s Work with
Gardens?
• Assist sites in the planning and coordination
• Assist sites in the cultivation of foods, garden maintenance
• Assist sites in the distribution of produce, help them develop a distribution plan
• Encourage integration of garden produce into food services
• Connect gardens with community sites to distribute produce (food pantries, churches
etc.)
• Connect nutrition education and otherTNCEP resources to the garden
• Learn Grow Eat and Go (3rd – 5th)
• Tasty Days (Youth)
• Grow it,Try it, Like it (Preschool Curriculum)
• Grow it, Eat it (Adult Handouts)
9. How canTNCEP Help?
• Allowable Expenses:
• Seeds
• Starter plants
• Potting soil
• Fertilizer
• Small gardening tools
• Remind participants that they can purchase
seeds and plants with their SNAP dollars
• Connect nutrition education
10. Featured Garden: Gibson County
La Quita Clark
Extension Program Assistant II
Barbara Berry
Extension Agent III & County Director
11. Before you get Started:
• Engage Stakeholders:
• Find interested people and develop a planning group
• Identify Resources:
• Form local partnerships, identify if your county has a master gardener program
• Develop a Mission and a Plan:
• Determine what the goal of the garden is, how will the produce be distributed, who will
manage the garden?
15. To EVALUATE is to determine
the value of our work
MONITORING is a way of tracking
progress, events and accomplishments of
the initiative
16. What do I track?
Ask: Who, What, When, Where, How much
17. Ask: Who, What, When, Where, How much
What we invest What we do Who is involved Who we reach
• Staff
• Volunteers
• Time
• Money
• Materials
• Equipment
• Partners
• Donations
• Meetings
• Services delivered
• Developed products,
resources
• Facilitation of access
to information
• Other activities
• Relationships
• Ascribe value to time
and produce
• Partners
• Participants
• Community Members
• Volunteers
• Food produced and
donated
• Satisfaction
• Marketing
• Economic benefits
(money saved/cost)
• Outputs
• Accomplishments
• Outcomes
Program: community garden
Goal: increased program participation and access to fresh vegetables
18. Be sure to address questions that are important to you,
members of your community, and those who are
providing financial/material support:
• How much did the community participate?
• What programs, policies or practices have changed in the community?
• Have people's behaviors changed? If so, what kinds, and how?
• Are those changes due to your efforts?
19. Reporting to SUPER
• Include volunteer hours
• # of nutrition supports implemented in agencies and communities
• Plan and prepare healthy dietsTopic
• Include all activities as supports that increase healthy diets:
• # times produce was distributed
• # taste tests
• # packets of seeds distributed
• Include information in your impact statement
• Track partners, donations, volunteer contributions
20. Helpful Gardening Resources:
• A Comprehensive Gardening Resource:Tennessee Department of Health
• Gardening Resources: SNAP-Ed Connection
• Find out if your county has a master gardener program
• Getting started GardenVideos from RNECE
• For Participants: https://www.snapgardens.org/snap-participant/
Hinweis der Redaktion
Before we get started, I want to introduce to the idea of Monday Meetups. These are meant to be a space to talk about the community work that is being done beyond TNCEP Direct education
Not meant to be an all inclusive how-to training, just to get you thinking. Its about getting you the information and resources you need so that if you have the opportinuty to get involved in one of these projects, you are prepared and ready to do so.
Second Monday of every month
Our guidance sites food gardens as a “Beneficial activity that leads to the economical production and consumptions of healthy fresh food.” This happens because gardens are really increasing access and exposure to fresh produce for our participants.
Gardens also connect well with TNCEP nutrition education programs and we will get into which ones in a bit.
Gardens also offer many community benefits:
Others: Strengthening social connection, beautifying community spaces.
Other sites that reach our target audience
Senior centers, Housing complexes, Food Pantries, Faith Based Sites
Last but not least, your role is to always connect the garden back to nutrition education. Some of the complimentary programs and resources we have are here. However, any nutrition or healthy eating program is complimentary to a community garden.
I also want to make a note about EFNEP PA’s Garden participation:
EFENP PA’s main role is directly connecting with participants, so they can be involved in gardening efforts by connect gardening efforts with nutrition education.
Another role they can play, they may also be teaching nutrition education at a community site and find they have community garden that could use additional support or that the site is interested in started a community garden- they may refer the site to their agent.
Many of you may not know that we have allowable expenses that can be purchased through your supply budget. Seeds, started plants, potting soil, fertilizer and small gardening tools. I realize that small gardening tools sounds a little vague and this comes straight from our guidance so we are still learning about everything that can fit into this category. So please, if there is something you think fits in these categories, submit for it and we can seek approval on our end. This will help us build a more detailed list of allowable expenses.
Also! If you are from a small county with a smaller supply budget, please don’t let this deter you from gardening projects, talk to us about your project and we can see what we can make work.
So now we will hear from your colleagues in Gibson county, LaQuita Clark and Barbara Berry in a video created by Chantal. As we go through this video explaining how they got their garden started, please listen for a few things that really contributed to the strength of their garden:
1) How they got started including reaching out to a whole lot of partners that they may not have been used to working with
2) The video talks about some really simple logistical things that really helped them stay organized and helped volunteers and other stakeholders stay engaged.
3) It is talked about on more than one occasion, they had a clear vision for this garden and its purpose, that helped drive the effort and allowed them to help get partners on board.
Over the last several months, I have been asked over and over again, "How are we supposed to evaluate our PSE work?"
We teach recipes that have very explicit instructions: An ingredient list, a numbered, step by step process for manipulating said ingredients, some sory of time frame and then ...like magic, you get muffins...or whatever you are baking or cooking. A very linear A to B process
The reality is not the same for PSE work. Working with complex systems is messy and unpredictable and requires much agility. Evaluating one is even more difficult. No one has the right answer for how to evaluate a PSE project, but we can do our best.
There are a lot of fears about evaluation:
1 I don't know how, I don't have time, I am afraid of the results, I hate numbers...but evaluate we must.
*To EVALUATE is to determine the value of our work
Evaluation is critically important
- success is reinforcing (do more of what is working)
-failure is instructive
-increases our chances for further action
-helps us understand important aspects (course-correcting & improving)
Before we can evaluate, we need to monitor. MONITORING is a way of tracking progress, events and accomplishments of the initiative
Monitoring helps us:
-understand the inititative
-make decisions concerning the programming and implementatino of the initiative
-promote awareness of accomplishments
-recruit support
secure additional funding and resources
Information can be collected by recording ideas, plans, actions and events on a regular basis aka weekly. Take the time to carefully gather your information. Accurate and detailed data allows for more accurate and valuable evaluation and thorough results, which can be included in impact statements.
This might include information such as:
Dates, descriptions, motivations, who was asked, who was involved, what organization contributed people or resources, what sector are they from, etc.
Information can be collected by recording ideas, plans, actions and events on a regular basis aka weekly. Take the time to carefully gather your information. Accurate and detailed data allows for more accurate and valuable evaluation and thorough results, which can be included in impact statements.
This might include information such as:
Dates, descriptions, motivations, who was asked, who was involved, what organization contributed people or resources, what sector are they from, etc.
