10/27/2022

Title: Celebrate KSU Day at the Franklin County Farmers Market and what has grown from it.

This story all starts at Celebrate KSU day on September 17^th at the Franklin County Farmers Market. The KSU 4-H Youth Development team set up a booth at the farmers market planning to educate the community on what 4-H is and what KSU 4-H has to offer. We spoke to at least 50 people and had 26 community members sign up to volunteer. These community members had areas of expertise in topics ranging from photography, arts and crafts, gardening, healthcare, science video production, model plane building and juggling. Seeing all the knowledge just a small percent of the community had to offer made me optimistic for future opportunities for programming. Us gaining information through conversation with community members allowed us to get a feel for some of the needs in the community, as well as numerous community need assessments collected utilizing Qualtrics. In addition, we made connections with community center board members, teachers, church youth group leaders, homeschool groups and the Franklin County Farmers Market Staff. In building the connection with the Farmers Market Staff we have been able to provide programming for groups of students visiting the farmers market from Capital Day School and Second Street School. We are also participating in the Kids Days at the Farmers Market. The Second Street School in collaboration with the Franklin County Farmers Market has a gardening club that we are going to provide programming on connecting what is being grown in the garden to how they can utilize those foods in their diets. I am very excited to continue to work with the Franklin County Farmers Market to meet the needs of the Franklin County Community and look forward to building more connections within it.