During the Covid-29 Pandemic, Family and Consumer Sciences educators and extension as a whole,  have been called to the forefront to approach education and learning in an entirely new way.  Not being able to meet face-to-face with groups, has made it necessary to be innovative and creative in our approach to reach our clientele.

In our office, the agents have alternated the preparation of Brown Bag Projects, in order to serve our clientele with educational opportunities.  There have been gardening projects, offered by the Agriculture and Natural Resources agent, 4-H related projects from our 4-H Agent, and several different types of projects that Family and Consumer Sciences Education has presented.  By far, the most popular of those offered by Family and Consumer Sciences have been the food preparation projects.  

At present, we have offered two foods projects.  The first one was how to prepare Nutritional Energy Balls, which involved a recipe from SNAP.  We prepared 100 bags to be picked up outside our door from a table that we set up with the bags.  It was astounding how quickly that the bags disappeared.  We advertised the bags on our Social Media pages, and within hours, the bags had all been picked up.  Many parents posted pictures of their children completing the project on Facebook.  One young lady even had her mother to video tape her own version of a cooking show to post on Facebook, called "Cooking with Boog", which is her nickname.  She was so well-prepared, followed food safety guidelines, and best of all, acknowledged the Magoffin County Extension Service as her source of supplies and information.  Needless to say, she was an instant hit. 

The second food-related project that we did was a "Biscuit Baking" Brown Bag.  We provided all of the ingredients necessary to make homemade biscuits (Excluding the milk).  We also included a recipe from the 4-H Beginners' Cooking series for them to follow.  Once again, many pictures were shared by parents on Facebook, showing their children making and enjoying homemade biscuits.  One grandmother sent a picture to our office of her three granddaughters, all with their SNAP kids' aprons on, with biscuits in their hands.  She said that they were so excited to make the biscuits and told her that, "they were the best biscuits that they had ever eaten."

We plan to do other cooking projects in the future, as we continue to prepare Brown Bag Projects.  Although doing them is expensive and more difficult to prepare, the kids enjoy them so much, and it gives us the opportunity to include publications about food preparation, food safety, and recipes from SNAP for them to enjoy.  Each bag always contains SNAP information, the latest information concerning Covid-19, and publications that are necessary to complete the project.