Community collaborations/partnerships are invaluable in building communities. Community collaboration is the process of individuals, organizations, and groups within a community working together toward shared goals. This involves pooling resources, knowledge, and skills to address common challenges and create positive learning experiences. Often, there is simply the need to organize leaders and groups to combine their efforts to meet the goals. Many times, these same groups are already working on the same goal independently and combining their efforts can increase results and improve the outcomes on meeting these common goals. 

The Cumberland County Extension Service ANR agent organized an agriculture community drive-thru event on National Ag Day. This event was to highlight local agriculture producers as well as provide a 3.5 gallon bucket full of educational materials about available resources. The local soil conservation office was set up with the ANR agent for the drive thru. Multiple agencies donated incentive items and/or program information for the buckets, Farm Service Agency, Natural Resources Conservation Service, Farm Credit, Bluegrass Stockyards, and Farm Bureau. Two other community events with multiple community partners was held led by the Cumberland County FCS agent. The first event was the Home and Garden Expo with all extension staff setting up booths to promote gardening and healthy homes. In addition, five other community partners set up to educate youth and adults on healthy foods, gardening and activities. 75 people attended this event and participated in hands-on activities. The second event was a Health Fair that was a collaboration with Cumberland County Health Coalition. There were 11 partners involved in this event. Each sat up displays and gave participants health and wellness information. 78 people attended this event and it was the largest health fair that the community had held in several years. All partners stated they considered both events a success and that they would like to be invited next year if these become annual events.