The program is a collaboration between the elementary school / 21^st Century summer camp program and the Extension office staff, Agriculture, Natural Resource agent, Family and Consumer Science agent and Myself the Nutrition Education Program assistant. The County schools are 72% low income and subsequently classified as free lunch. This program is aimed at keeping the students engaged and learning during the summer break from normal school. Our aim was to teach a gardening and nutrition program with the Where’s Wally cat program.

 I enlisted the help and support of local businesses, Potters Ace hardware, United Methodist opportunity store, First and Farmers Bank, the public library and lastly the IGA Supermarket. These businesses funded awards and grand prize of supermarket shopping voucher. Wally was placed at these stores/ venues for a week where the children and families could find them take a picture with him and send it  to us at the extension office to prove they found him.

The students did our programs during the day with the extension staff and their teachers giving them activities to do and also clues to decipher the riddle of where Wally Cat was in our community business. We had reorganized it from the last time and the teachers had done a great job of promoting this to the families / parents as well. The students were fully involved and did not even realize that they were learning, when they had to read the clues and solve the riddle where Wally was along with the nutrition challenge to get extra awards each class. We also had two group /levels K-2 and 3^rd- 5^th Grade. The teachers in the 21^st Century summer program said they enjoyed the challenge as much as the students.  Some middle school students participated through the 4H Barbecue chicken project day. Families , business managers and staff applauded the activity and said they really enjoyed helping the children get back into more normal activities after the schooling during the covid period. A note that intrigued me was the best numbers of attendance was at the opportunity store week this seemed to be where most of the students felt more comfortable and talked to staff about what they thought about the program. Other shoppers also asked about the program. The proof of the program success was at the back to school bash the students were very excited to see the extension staff at our booth on the family night.