The Covid-19 Pandemic presented many challenges for our county programs. One challenge was to move our programming to a virtual format in order to safely provide information to community members. Another challenge from the Covid-19 Pandemic has been increased food insecurity and increased demand for self-sufficiency skills such as home food preservation. One successful program that met both of these needs was our Family and Consumer Sciences Food Preservation demonstration videos.

Demonstration videos were produced for freezing and pressure canning green beans. The Family and Consumer Sciences agent demonstrated the process of canning and freezing green beans in two separate videos, which were then posted to the county’s FCS Facebook page. The freezing demonstration video detailed the preparation of beans prior to freezing, the blanching process and the importance of using freezer safe supplies for produce. The pressure canning video was a more comprehensive demonstration of how to use a research-based recipe and how to use a pressure canner and basic canning supplies to produce a safely canned food product that will last for months to come. Any Facebook followers who commented on the pressure canner demonstration video were entered into a drawing to win the canned green beans as well as the leftover fresh green beans that were not canned.

The freezing green beans demonstration video received 335 views and had a total of 43 likes, comments and shares. The pressure canning demonstration video received 484 views and also had a total of 43 likes, comments and shares. Some of the comments on the demonstration videos included “Thanks for the demonstration video”, “Looking forward to this” and “Enjoyed the demonstration”.

https://www.facebook.com/312209958892705/videos/3455882674476637

https://www.facebook.com/312209958892705/videos/722478428530816