Sweet Summertime at the Farmers’ Market

by Carrie Derossett

Major Program: Family and Consumer Sciences 4-H Core Curriculum

Logan County is among the counties in Kentucky in the second highest category for death rates caused by heart disease, diabetes, and certain cancers. Adult obesity is at 34% in Logan County which contributes to these unhealthy situations. Logan County also has a number of citizens living below the poverty level with over 16% of the total population below poverty and over 23% of children under the age of 18 living below the poverty level. Nutrition Education Programs help families gain access to food and stretch food dollars; communities to decrease hunger; and local food assistance programs to educate recipients on healthy and safe food preparation methods. Agents, paraprofessionals and volunteers are pivotal in training consumers and producers to maximize local access to food products from farm to table.

The average person is 3 generations removed from production agriculture. It is important to educate the public and our youth about where their food comes from and emphasize food safety. 

For the past few years, the Logan County Extension Agents for Family and Consumer Sciences, 4-H Youth Development, Agriculture and Natural Resources, and our Nutrition Education Program Assistant has partnered together to provide a community event to educate and invite our clients to the Logan County Farmers’ Market. This year’s event was called Sweet Summertime at the Farmer’s Market. Due to COVID restrictions in 2020, we made this year’s event a drive-through no-contact event.

We targeted preschool-middle school youth and their families. Each client received a bag with sidewalk chalk with physical fitness educational activities, sunglasses with sun safety information, bubbles with bubble art activity information, keychains, and Farmers’ Market bucks to spend at the Farmers’ Market. Preschool youth were also given an additional bag with Kindergarten Readiness education material. We partnered with the Logan County and Russellville Family Resource Youth Service Centers. They provided board games, household items, and popsicles to the participants. 144 youth participated in the event and $749 Farmers’ Market bucks were spent at the Farmers’ Market.

This program allowed youth to receive educational material and were encouraged to shop at our Farmers’ Market. The Farmers’ Market vendors were able to have 144 additional youth shoppers and received an additional $749 in revenue.