Providing research based information in a way to meet Extensions clients’ needs can be particularly challenging in urban counties. The National Urban Extension Leaders (NUEL), (https://nuel.extension.org ), shares some challenges that  Urban Extension has when sharing information to their communities. NUEL shares that Extension needs to have presence and understand communities to have successful Extension programming. In addition, responding to the demographic trend(s) of urbanization, Urban Extension will need to stay relevant and responsive to the needs of the communities throughout Kentucky.  Kentucky Extension is currently collecting data for a community assessment, which will be an instrumental tool in developing and implementing programs in urban communities.  

People are busy and marketing traditional Extension program where participants come to our office location to sit for a single session or even a series can take an hour to up to a few hours depending on topic and class details. Here in Campbell County, all of our horticulture classes are free of charge and most of our home horticulture classes are at least an hour long. We’ve offered morning, mid-day and even evening classes and some hybrid classes and we continue to find that our attendance is under twenty, which we would rate low and within that we may capture 1-2% new Extension users. A mission to cultivate more new Extension users and existing participants, utilizing local TV media has been a great success for horticulture programming. Going into the third season, In the Gardens with Sarah Imbus is a seasonal short show broadcasted by our local cable broadcast Campbell County Media (https://campbellmedia.org/show-page/in-the-garden-with-sarah/ ).

Topics such as, preparing your garden beds, planting a tree, choosing the right garden tool or attracting pollinators in the garden, have been a few topics aired. On average 150-200 viewers tune to watch the shows. In addition to watching on TV, viewers can stream current and archived shows online. This has made it user friendly and people can search using key words, and if I’ve covered that topic, they can watch and learn.

As a result, viewers have corresponded with the horticulture agent offering topic ideas and shared their appreciation for the information. In addition, the show has brought attention to our Extension Education Gardens, and more people are aware and utilize the space. Comments have been shared that knowledge gained has influenced landscape decisions at home. Utilizing Campbell Media will continue to be one way to share horticulture information within our urban communities in Campbell County.