Community Garden Program Receives Recognition

The Cooperative Extension Program at N.C. A&T State University received a 1st place award for its Growing Food and Community in North Carolina Community Gardens program last week at the Association for Extension Administrators (AEA) Systemwide Conference in Memphis, TN!

Community garden program receives recognition in the Community Development poster session. Lisa stands proudly next to the blue ribbon!

The AEA conference was inspiring and lots of fun! Hundreds of Extension employees from all of the 1890 institutions gathered to learn from each other and share information about the work they are doing in their home states. There were many great posters about agriculture, community development, 4H youth development, and family and consumer science. I was excited to see there are several other programs working with community gardens!

The Association for Extension Administrators or AEA serves the 1890 Cooperative Extension System which specifically works to serve diverse audiences, with emphasis on those who have limited social and economic resources. If you're not familiar with the history of the 1890 institutions (aka historically black land-grant institutions), you'll be interested to learn more about it here.

Community garden program poster

Congratulations to all those who have been an integral part of making this program a success and a big thank you to all those who have supported the program over the last several years!

A special congratulations to:

• Dr. Keith Baldwin (the project's principal investigator)
• the A&T Extension faculty and staff
• the county Extension agents and Extension directors at our three pilot community sites
• the CYFAR community garden coordinators
• the numerous volunteers

... and last but not least, congratulations to the community gardeners themselves -- the true stars of this program!  Your perseverence, personal stories, smiling faces and willingness to try something new, put your hands in the dirt and get outside to meet your neighbors is the true success story! You are an inspiration to all.