For decades, food preservation has been used by families to preserve garden harvests. According to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, one in five households in the United States practice home canning or food preservation. The Center for Disease Control has stated that 30 percent of botulism cases from the past decade was caused by home canning practices.

As by popular demand, the Floyd County Family & Consumer Science Agent held multiple food preservation virtual workshops. Due to COVID-19 policies and procedures, virtual workshops were the most convenient and reasonable way to reach audiences in the county wanting to learn food preservation methods.

In late summer of 2020, the Floyd County Family & Consumer Sciences Agent with the assistance of the Floyd County Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program Senior Assistant did three different workshops including pressure canning, water bath canning, and dehydrating. The Agent and Assistant demonstrated safe pressure canning methods and safe practices when it comes to canning green beans. The Agent also post pre-recorded videos of water bath canning methods provided by the university and pre-recorded videos of the Floyd County Family & Consumer Sciences Agent demonstrating safe dehydrating methods.

A total of 32 individuals participated in the virtual workshops. Surveys indicated that 90 percent of participants agreed that they were able to identify safe, research-based methods of home food preservation. Individuals also stated in the social media group that they plan on doing and sharing the knowledge they learn from the workshop with their grandchildren.