Homemakers, Schools, and Diabetes Class

I am wrapping up my first two weeks in the Marshall County Extension office. I am from Marshall County and participated in 4H all through elementary, middle, and high school. I was familiar with some of the people here already, and the others have been extremely nice and fun to work with. This place is always buzzing with activity, and along with my own work I have learned a lot about the extension program in general. I had no idea how much this office did in and around our county.

I started my two weeks by attending the Purchase Area Homemakers meeting. I had never heard of the Homemakers, so this was a very interesting experience. They had just returned from their state meeting, so they were all excited to share their stories and what they had learned.

The end of last week I was able to participate in a program called STAND with the Health Department. The program's main focus is keeping kids away from tobacco products. A woman from the health department would do a talk about the harmful effects of tobacco, and in between me and 3 interns from the health department would add a nutrition lesson in. Since it was the end of school, the kids were wild, but it turned out to be a lot of fun.

We were suppose to do another program with the health department called HANDS which is a program for first time parents. However, the health department is in the middle of moving and had limited time to prepare, so no one was able to come for that one.

This week, I again worked with the health department interns to do a two day diabetes class. These interns are actually from the UK hospital and will complete their dietetic internship tomorrow. I loved getting to work with them, and they were able to fill me in on a lot of questions I had about the dietetic internship. Our class had 12 attendees, and went really great. We took turns talking about different aspects of diabetes such as carb counting, exercise, blood sugar monitoring, doctor visits and other things. Each day we also prepared lunch for the class, so it was fun to experiment with new and healthy recipes.

As I finish up this week and go into next week I am working on a presentation for the Homemakers annual picnic, and a class for 4H camp. I am talking to the Homemakers about the Plate It Up program. Since I just finished a class that worked a lot with that program, I am excited to talk about what I learned. For 4H I am teaching a cooking class at camp. I am looking forward to the rest of this summer and what I will learn here at the extension office.

Emily Northcutt