Whitley County Expanded Food and Nutrition Program (EFNEP) Assistant, understands the importance of being accessible to the clients of the Nutrition Education Program (NEP), and was feeling a bit detached from clients due to the COVID-19 Pandemic of 2020.  She knew her computer skills definitely needed some improvement, but up until COVID-19, she didn’t really think much of it, due to her job being more of an “in-person” “hands-on” instruction type teaching method.  Many of her clients didn’t own computers and with them relying on their cell phones usually with a limited amount of minutes accessible monthly, the assistant had to rethink things.  Because of this she realized it wasn’t going to be feasible to do a lot of person to person calling, even though she enjoyed more of the person to person contact.  That prompted the onset of setting up the UK Whitley County Nutrition Education Program @ Whitley EFNEP Facebook page that was completed March 31, 2020, and was made possible with the help of various support.  The EFNEP assistant is able to assist the local clientele through postings, and could help someone outside of Whitley County, to her that was even more of a plus!  

One main concern is that many youth, when school is not in session, suffers with food instability.

According to Feeding Kentucky, Kentucky Legal Food Frenzy, in their article “Hunger in Kentucky,”  

There are nearly 700,000 Kentuckians, including nearly 200,000 children, who struggle with hunger. That means 1 in 7 adults and 1 in 5 children in Kentucky lack consistent access to enough food for a healthy, active lifestyle.

Nearly all (94 percent) of Kentucky’s food bank client households with school-aged children receive free or reduced-price school lunch through the National School Lunch Program. Only one in five Kentucky children who eat free or reduced price lunch during the school year have access to such meals during the summer months when school is out.

One particular post stands out in reference to the EFNEP Facebook postings, and that was the July 7^th posting entitled, “IMPORTANT SNAP BENEFIT PANDEMIC PEBT CARD INFO:   Date extended to end of August.

“Families now have until August 31^st to apply for Pandemic EBO (P-EBT) FOOD BENEFITS.  The new announcement can be found on Facebook at:   https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=3026221947468542 and the application and screening information can be found here:  https://benefind.ky.gov/PreScreening/PEBTInformationAndRules”

After receiving notice of this extension on food benefits via email, the EFNEP assistant wanted to get the word out about this extended deadline to any and all that could benefit from it.  Through various information locally and the SNAP Office along with many updates from the State level, the EFNEP Assistant was in hopes that some of the postings could help the local citizens, and anyone else visiting the page, so it was shared on her EFNEP Facebook page.  From this particular posts, there were 270 people reached, she even received some phone calls from individuals stating this particular posting  helped them to apply and receive the extra food dollars, which they had thought was missed due to letting the first deadline pass them by.

An excerpt from one of the messages left on her page in reference to this particular post was “thank you for all the help you have given me about the PEBT … I hope that it benefits everyone like it has helped me…”

Learning to set up and post information on the @ Whitley EFNEP Facebook page, was well worth the time and effort treading this uncomfortable (to her) method of reaching new clientele through this type of media, especially once she heard from different individuals that it helped them to benefit with additional food dollars.

This particular post has prompted her to think EVEN MORE “outside of the box,”, and she is attempting to make more posts in the upcoming new program year.  

When checking her Total Page views, it was up 200% compared to the previous 7 days, for the September 30, 2020 program year.  What a way to end the program year in an area she wasn’t really that familiar with.