Author: Brad Lee
Planning Unit: Plant and Soil Sciences
Major Program: Water and Soil Quality and Conservation
Outcome: Intermediate Outcome
Rain barrels are a great way to get the public involved and raise awareness for water conservation and management around the home. We, my program and Dr. Annette Heisdorffer, Horticulture Agent at the Daviess County Cooperative Extension Office), have partnered with the Owensboro Regional Water Resource Agency for 9 years to deliver a rain barrel workshop for Owensboro residents and surrounding communities. After five consecutive annual workshops pre-pandemic, this workshop resumed on spring of 2023 post-pandemic. As in pre-pandemic years, two hands-on, workshop sessions of 25 people each were sold out ($20/participant) and waiting lists were developed. The 50 participants learned about water conservation around the home, construction, installation, operation, maintenance, and safety related to rain barrels at home. Each participant went home with a constructed rain-barrel worth over $60 in parts, as well as written instructions how to safely utilize the water collected from a barrel. A few months later the same group of collaborators offered a rain garden workshop to 10 participants who learned how to design and construct a residential rain garden via a hands-on workshop involving the rebuilding of the Daviess County CES office rain garden.
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