Each year during the gardening season, Edmonson County residents reach out to the Edmonson County Cooperative Extension Service with questions about food preservation. During the 2020 gardening and canning season many families had a renewed interest in home food preservation. Due to COVID restrictions the FCS Agent was not able to accommodate  in person food preservation classes in Edmonson County. Due to this the FCS Agent created SOKY Home Food Preservation. A Facebook group moderated by the Mammoth Cave Area FCS Agents where clients could ask food preservation questions, and agents could share information. The group has grown to 168 members. 

The Edmonson County FCS Agent and Barren County FCS Agent partnered to teach a food preservation basics class. Due to COVID restrictions only six clients could attend the class. The class was livestreamed in the Facebook group where 20 clients were able to watch live.

In November/ December of 2020 the FCS Agent reached out to group members asked them to take part in the survey via Qualtrics Questions were related to their food preservation in the past year and were taken from the SNAP Garden survey.

According to the data:

According to the data collected from 15 families:

•  1389 pints of fruits, pickles, jams, jellies, sauces, relishes were canned 
•  1542 pints of vegetables, soups, meats, or other value-added products were canned through pressure canning
•  334 pints of fruits or vegetables were frozen
•  390 pints of fruits or vegetables were dried.
• 64 pints of fruit dehydrated