Covid – 19 restrictions made us think outside the box or should we say inside the box.

The extension office could not have any in person programs for quite some time in 2020 so this made us think of different ways to reach people with our programs, people still had issues with health and nutrition that we could assist with but how to reach them was a challenge. There were some media classes like Zoom and Facebook and these still happen however we kept thinking about greater outreach.

The Family and Consumer Science Agent and myself the SNAP-ED Assistant decided to fall back on an old tried media that had fallen out of favor when there were more people getting on line to do computer program classes.

We came up with a radio program with our local radio station, this was beneficial because the radio station had been looking for new programs and we had 23.3% *of people in our county that were living in poverty and many did not have access to computers so this worked well for those. It also connected people to the outside world even if they were working from home or  traveling working in their vehicle.

The normal program that we replaced every two weeks was called “TALK AROUND TOWN” our NEW program was called  ” TABLE TALK”. The listening radius is 12 counties in Kentucky and Tennessee, with total population of 188,826* which included Cumberland county with population of 6,697. The program was set up to be interactive like talk back radio, so it was call in and answer a question or tell us your favorite recipe or solution for a problem and they won a prize or collected grab bags with nutritional information. Again we started this late in 2020 but because it was so popular we have been asked to continue.

At first we were skeptical but it has been a huge success from day one with people stopping us down town now asking when we are on radio again or what will we be discussing next. We have covered all sorts of topics from how to plan and budget for meals, growing your own food, freezing and preserving foods, which fresh produce is in season. Recipes and how to stretch your foods out for more meals. We have both young and old, male and female call in and talk about these topics. We are now looking for ways to expand this idea. Listeners are already contact us through other social media like on the radio station facebook page and our phones by text messaging. We are continuing to monitor what people want and how we can assist them but it has changed how we view our communications.

1. 2020 Kentucky Nutrition Education Program Annual Report: Cumberland County
2. 107.9 WKYR Coverage Map