Access to local fruits and vegetables are limited in Pendleton County. Despite the health benefits, only 2% of Pendleton County adults get the recommended servings of fruits and vegetables compared to the state average 8.0% of adults meeting the daily fruit intake recommendation and only 6.3% of adults meet the daily vegetable intake.  Nationwide, only 12.2% of adults meet the daily fruit recommendation and only 9.3% meet the vegetable recommendation.

To help with this situation this past summer the Pendleton County Agents, FCS, ANR and 4-H, partner with Farmers Market, local parks, library and the Pendleton County Fair Board to offer a summer fitness challenge, called Fitness for Produce.  A FCS mini grant was received to help finance with this challenge. With our target audience being youth and parents of school age children, Extension and community partners offered educational classes, agent led hikes, community service project opportunities and activities for families to do on their own.  

Fitness Challenge

One of those activities included our new black topped ¼ mile long trail around the Pendleton County Extension office that has five trial outdoor fitness stations. The challenge allowed families to participate in physical activity events and earn tokens to spend at our local farmer market.  The average participant earned $26 in tokens to spend at our market.  As a result of our efforts 51 children and adults participate in the challenge.  With one of the agent led hikes, 41 individuals attended and our range of age of those attending was 1-98. A mother and daughter that participate in challenge shared on their Facebook page: “together we earned $61 dollars in tokens for the Farmer’s Market through our summer fitness challenge.  We will be eating healthy for a while and cannot wait to spend all our tokens.”  On a separate Facebook post during the challenge she also shared: “I have to admit, my daughter does not like physical activity, but she can hang when there is a challenge.  She hiked two trails today, came back home and lifted weights and did yoga, then asked “am I in second place yet.”

Other participants shared the challenge increased their awareness of hiking opportunities in our own county and helped become more physically active while providing them the benefit of being able to purchase local grown produHike with 41 participants

Library

Our local library, where our educational classes were held in conjunction with their summer reading, shared the program reached 245 youth and 185 adults, of which included most of challenge participants.

Veteran Park

At the local Veteran’s Park we (Challenge participants, led by agents) planted flowers and stained and re placed the wood on 15 picnic tables.  This park is where our Feed the Kids takes place every Wednesday during the summer and that event alone allowed 331 youth and parents a space to enjoy the meals provided weekly. The old lumber from the picnic table will be refurbished to build 26 raised beds in our community. Some of those beds will be going in at local schools, treatment centers and other community business/community service locations in our county.   Our local mayor Ron Stinson shared: “This project meant so much to me and to all of the citizens who enjoy Veterans' Park.  Our old picnic tables had seen 20 years of use and abuse.  This project provided the resources and labor to enhance the looks and usability of our picnic shelter while promoting team work and healthy living.”  A local council member also share: “I wish to thank the Pendleton County Extension Center and their volunteers for their service project at Veterans Park in Falmouth.  They did an awesome job of painting and repairing the tables and benches.  This was truly a blessing and a gift for the city and the families that utilize the park."  Amy Beckett Hurst, Falmouth City Councilman

replacing

Fairgrounds

We also mulched and planted flowers at the local fairgrounds the week prior to our local fair, for all county participants attending the fair to enjoy and provided signage for a local trial tucked away in northeast part of the county to help with visibility on where the trail is located.  Through our service projects the county has enjoyed the created infrastructure and increase in park attendance has been reported by our mayor.  

4-H

Part of our fitness challenge included a 4-H 5K fundraiser in which our local 4-H raised over $1750 to help with programming.

Farmers Market

Our farmer’s market saw and increase weekly activities and over $300 in tokens were distributed adding to increase in sales for our local farmer.  Two of our local farmer’s market vendors shared: “the Fitness for Produce challenge has introduced new interest in the Farmers Market. Those seeking the freshest local produce for their fitness goals have been a welcome face to add to our present customer base. One of the missions of the Market is to provide local fresh, nutritious foods to the community, so this has been a win-win for the Market vendors as well as a great resource for those wishing to meet their healthy goals.” (Sara Pettit) and added to that “It also gives the challenger the opportunity to see what else the Farmers’ Market has to offer and maybe make suggestions as to what other produce they would like to purchase.” (Martha Gosney)