The residents of Carlisle County live in a food desert.  Having only 2 supermarket locations available for the entire county, access to fresh produce is limited.  Many residents resort to home gardening to fill this need.  In an effort to provide residents with a way to make their freshly grown produce last beyond harvest and stretch their food dollars, a 3 day food preservation workshop was offered.

Six participants completed the 2019 Carlisle County Food Preservation Program where they were taught the pressure canning, water bath canning, freezing and drying methods of food preservation.  Half (50%) of the participants reported never, rarely or sometimes using food preservation methods prior to the program.  Participants said that they learned about the program through the Homemaker Newsletter, Facebook, friends, and the Extension website.  The reasons given by most participants for choosing to attend the program were because of a desire to learn (100%), to improve their skills (80%), for personal accomplishment (80%), and to interact with others (60%)*.  One participant wrote that she attended the program because she wanted to make sure that she was “doing it right”.

End of program evaluation results indicate an increase in food preservation skills.  All participants (100%) agreed or strongly agreed they had better skills in home food preservation methods, could identify the necessary equipment for home food preservation methods, could accurately prepare foods and containers for home food preservation, could identify the correct method for canning low acid and high acid foods and could identify spoilage in home preserved products after the program.

Over half of the participants (67%) reported growing a garden this year, and are planting in a total of over 5,000 square feet of garden area.  One participant commented that the class “was fantastic!”  There were no suggestions for improvement.