One of the pieces to monthly Extension Homemaker Club meetings is an educational lesson. This is what makes Extension Homemakers distinctive from other organizations.   Members from each club volunteer as monthly lesson leaders and attend trainings provided by the Extension FCS agents to equip them with the skills to teach the educational lesson to their members.  Different areas accomplish this in different manners, but in the Pennyrile Area this training is still done with the Extension FCS Agent visiting each county.  During the 2019-20 Homemaker year, the Trigg County FCS agent was tasked with developing and presenting a lesson on Kentucky’s German Heritage.  The lesson included information on the first German settlements in America, the migration west, German settlements in the Pennyrile Area, a discussion of German food, and tasting traditional German cookies.  

The lesson was taught in 8 of the 9 counties of the Pennyrile Area to 54 volunteer lesson leaders. According to the evaluation, 72% of the volunteers came to the training with very little knowledge about the subject.  When asked about new knowledge gained participants responded with comments about being surprised about how large the German population was in Kentucky in its early days and learning about several German settlements located in the Pennyrile area.  After learning about different German foods, 78% of the volunteers said that they were willing to try new German foods, including Springerle cookies, worsts, and sauerbraten.  

All volunteers felt equipped to present a lesson to their clubs that would be educational as well as interesting.