This week in Cerro Gordo County, the rising star interns Paige and Taylor have continued work for Art Farm Iowa and the Lincoln Intermediate greenhouse project. With the Worth Country Fair approaching next week, we have been hard at work perfecting our promotional display for Art Farm Iowa. This week we were tasked with painting an old barn door and a base coat for the rocks that will eventually be used in a rock garden at the farm. Alongside Art Farm Iowa founder Steve Hansen, we hope to promote and inform the community of the nonprofit’s mission at the fair.

When we weren’t working on the Art Farm display, we were busy setting up and attending meetings to enhance the use of Lincoln Intermediate’s greenhouse space. We plan on working with local organizations and different pools of volunteer personnel to integrate the greenhouse into the student’s learning. One partnership that we have developed with this in mind is with the staff of Central Gardens in Clear Lake. Taylor and I met with the women who run the gardens to talk about our work and gauge how we could get more involved with their work as well. This week when we attended the event, we participated in activities such as bug catching and coloring healthy habit coloring sheets that promoted eating a variety of fruits and vegetables! In the coming weeks, we plan to attend their Fresh on Friday event at the gardens and engage with the community by running an informational booth. We hope our involvement in their program will expose us to knowledgeable community members and different resources for our greenhouse project.

Plant Donations to Day Cares

A few weeks ago, Grace and I assisted the Master Gardeners with their Junior Event, but we had leftover tomato and pepper plants. We wanted to put them to use instead of throwing them away, so we decided to donate the plants to Kountry Kids and Time for Tots, which are local daycares in Harlan. The kids were so excited to watch the plants grow and take care of them. They are also planning to make salsa with the tomatoes!

First Community Health Wellness Walk

On Wednesday, we were able to get outside by having our first Community Health Wellness Walk at Pioneer Park. It was such a beautiful day for a walk, and a few people from the community joined us. We walked half a mile and handed out water bottles at the end of the walk.

Community Health Assessment Focus Group

We ended our week by attending the Community Health Assessment Focus Group. The meeting focused on how we can improve the health of Shelby County residents in the next three years and identify what we should prioritize. Our meeting was filled with ideas and activities to figure out what we can do in the community. By the end, we picked four topics that we wanted to focus on, including community protective factors, environmental health, access to care, and social determinant factors.

Region 11 has been busy working on their projects this week! We are very thankful for all of the resources that are easily available to us. From meeting with professionals and networking with our co-workers, we have been able to outline proper expectations related to budget, resources, and time management this summer that align with our projects. Coordinating with others has also helped us brainstorm new and innovative ideas for our projects. We are finishing the week strong with clear goals and many exciting things in the works!

Benton County Outreach

This week Keira has been doing a lot of outreach by helping out at the Vinton food pantry and talking with the staff to see what they would like her to do to help with operations. They gave lots of ideas about how Keira can help but highlighted using “nudges” to get abundant goods off their shelves. One way she helped this week was by making the tables full of food that are ready to be taken by clients more pleasing to the eye. This allows clients the ability to see all their options and decide based off all the clearly displayed items.

We also organized a day camp with the REM Center in Vinton where we focused on gardening. They helped us get all our reserved beds planted in the community garden. After a short lesson about plants we got out hands dirty by planting sweet peas, cucumber, and carrot seeds, and even replanting some onions from Old School Produce. We finished off the camp by doing some garden yoga, where we focused on breathing and balance. Although we may not be gurus yet we had a great time trying!

Research County to County

This past week, Lila has furthered her research for the Linn County Project by visiting neighboring county fairs to tour their grandstands. She traveled to the Great Jones County Fair and the relatively new grandstands at the Cedar County Fair. These are both points of inspiration for the design at the Linn County Fairgrounds. Along with tours and research she has been busy creating sketches and digital drawings as the first step of her design process! 

We are excited for some of the projects we are doing next week, and finalizing our activities for the Benton and Linn county fairs!

During Week 3, we did a lot of work with our DayHabs. We adapted 2 different scripts for our upcoming sessions. One based on being clean and staying clean, and one about doing your laundry and how to do it properly. We met some new friends with our Orange City group and enjoyed making smoothies and energy bites.

We also made a few designs for our Hull Museum Project, where we are making a display for the birthplace of an idea. The idea being an extension, we also are showing the history and future of extension and outreach. Our brainstorming came to fruition, and we finally got an idea onto the page where we agreed. Below is a rough design of what we have at the moment

A week ago, we had our Momorial party, where we had Momos and other foods that our new international friends made and helped us make together. We played a couple games that day and got to know everyone. One fun game was family, where we picked a topic and then tried to remember the words people picked to guess who wrote what.

Project Definitions

A main part of our week here in Story County was defining the scope and needs of our three projects. For the Story County Fairground portion, we have decided to focus on branding packages and alternative restroom options. We met with the fairboard this week and agreed that these goals would meet their needs quite nicely. The 4-H club project is well under way with a focus on creating generalized plans that explain how to develop a non-traditional club and what elements lead to success. With that, we are building a social media and sponsorship plan for new clubs to follow as well. Similar to the 4-H project, we are developing a general plan to start community gardens. This plan will include essential elements of a garden as well as ways to define purpose. For our current donation garden, Beloit, we are making a social media plan to better advertise their efforts. 

Team Neutrino

This week our team met with an awesome example of a non-traditional 4-H club, Team Neutrino. This club is the definition of successful, so we absolutely had to pick the leaders’ brains on how they do it. We found out that the team is so successful because of their many avenues of outreach. Neutrino does peer-to-peer outreach. This is where students on the team mentor and display their work to younger kids in middle and elementary school. They also have a massive pool of professional mentors from the STEM field to help the team succeed. The best form of outreach the team does is through sponsorships. Not only does the team benefit from the adequate funds through a vast array of sponsors, these sponsors also benefit by teaching the next workforce. Team Neutrino thanks their sponsors with impact statements and letters written by team members. They are a great example of success for us to model our project on. We are using some of their methods to outline sponsorship acquisition guides. 

Beloit Donation Garden

We worked in the Beloit Donation Garden this week, like we do every Tuesday. Volunteer numbers were short, so we showed up a little early to ensure we could get all the work done. Working with a smaller group of volunteers this week opened our eyes to how many bodies it really takes to keep this garden up and going. Just as we were finishing up for the day, we got a massive downpour. The cool rain was much welcome after the hot, hard work outside. 

Beloit Garden’s First Harvest

After spending Tuesday afternoon gettin up close and personal removing the pesky Colorado Potato Beetles, we were back at the Beloit Gardens bright and early on Wednesday morning. This cool summer morning was spent harvesting varieties of lettuce that had reached the end of its first production cycle. After weighing almost 8 pounds of lettuce, we washed and dried using filtered rainwater and the bright sun. Though the weight may not sound like much, we brought 3 full boxes of lettuce to Food at First in Ames where it will be used to create nutritious meals to be served to those in need at no charge.

Story County Fairgrounds

Wednesday afternoon was spent building ideas for assisting the Story County Fairgrounds with expansion and advertisement. This consisted of the team looking into and reaching out to local venues for the fairgrounds to work with during private rentals while also beginning construction on a handout to provide information about the buildings available for private events. 

Cultivating Hope 

After a slow Thursday, our Friday morning was busy out in the field with Cultivating Hope Farms. This meeting was spent brainstorming ideas for gaining funding and increasing the outreach of Cultivating Hope as a club. With a few ideas to be discussed with venues for possible future events, we left the farms that morning with a strong sense of accomplishment.

Ames Farmers Market

The Rising Star interns kicked off a warm June morning out in the sun at the ISU Extension tent during the Ames Farmers Market. Children coming to the market with their parents got to enjoy the process of planting beanstalks and flowers that they could take home and transfer into their own planters or gardens. During these activities we spoke to the parents and provided them with information about gardening help and 4-H clubs. We spoke to many amazing people who all left with smiles on their faces. The kids were excited with their new plants and the parents grateful their children had not gotten covered in dirt. 

Community Garden Visit in Denison

Grace and I (Julia) started off our Tuesday by putting up signage at the community garden in Denison. The signs displayed information about the community garden, food safety in donation gardens, steps to wash your hands, and what to do with excess produce.

Tour of Denison

On Wednesday, we were able to get out of the office to tour Denison! Our first stop was the county fairgrounds, where we saw Earl Marshall the bull. Afterward, we visited Crawford County Memorial Hospital to discuss a future project and viewed their outdoor patio that has a stunning view of Denison. Our tour concluded at Yellowstone Park, where people can camp, hike, and swim in a lake.

Art in the Park

We ended our week at Art in the Park in Harlan. While we were there, we worked at the Wellness Alliance’s booth. Some members of the Wellness Alliance, Grace, and I handed out watermelon on a stick and talked about the new Imagination Playground. The kids, parents, and even grandparents loved the watermelon on a stick! 

This week, we adapted lessons and activities for a DayHab session on eating healthy snacks. We worked hard to bring this session to life with 10 friends from the Village Northwest community. The participants learned a lot and had a great time making snacks, especially when they got to use our bicycle blender to make a strawberry banana smoothie. We also made peanut butter “Energy Bites.”

On Wednesday, we traveled to Sioux City for the 5 Behaviors of a Cohesive Team professional development training. We got to know ISU Extension and Outreach employees from all over Northwest Iowa.

We had the opportunity to meet with Fred Hall and Leah TenNapel about what it means to be an ISU Extension and Outreach Specialist so that someday we might choose to live this dream. Fred Hall, the Dairy Specialist, provided a demonstration that has ingrained in our minds how quickly a cow regurgitates its cud.

We ended the week with advice on the Hull Museum Exhibit from a team of design specialists. Our next steps for the exhibit project are research, in-depth brainstorming, and mock-up design. We have exciting ideas in the works.

Region 4 has been full of the arts this week. On Tuesday we received a tour of the Worth County Fairgrounds from Dennis Johnson, who showed us all the different art pieces of the grounds that truly make it a unique area compared to some others. They even had exercise stations installed, so that while people walk the trail that circles the fairgrounds, they can stop and get some other elements of exercise in.

Thursday we had the privilege of getting early access to the Art Farm, which is just north of Northwood. We met with Steve Hanson and his father Merle, and they gave us a run down of the farm. We got to see all the murals they currently have, and explained the plans they have in place for more pieces. They also showed and explained to us the future projects they have construction wise, like building a bar/grill area that’s going to have a pizza oven for people to utilize.

Friday morning we got to attend the Fresh on Fridays event at the Central Gardens in Clear Lake. They have a bunch of kid activities to get kids engaged with gardening activities. Some girls were set up selling succulents and herbs, while there was another couple that made strawberry rhubarb smoothies for people to try. They also sell bouquets of fresh flowers grown in the gardens, and the proceeds go back to the gardens. There is also a social aspect, as there was many senior individuals that gathered to walk the gardens, or even sit and chat over coffee. We were able to actually sit and chat with these members of the community and tell them all about our experiences at the art farm, as many of them had no idea that it was even up there.

This summer, Region 11 interns will be working in Linn and Benton Counties. Lila will focus on the Linn County project, creating a design for a new grandstand and Keira will be working in Benton County carrying out new ideas for the local gardens and how they can positively impact the Benton community.

Research Round-Up

This Week the Region 11 interns have been working to gather information about our projects by talking to professionals in the field. We have toured the Linn County Fair Grounds, local food pantries, and Benton County’s Old School Produce. We have learned about the history and how we can help prepare for the future in each place. 

We started off this week by meeting our office coworkers, getting use to our office spaces, and learning about the “The Six Types of Working Genius by Patrick Lencioni. This is a process that Linn County staff are using to understand how work gets done and how their team can work together to utilize their strengths (Geniuses). We took the Working Genius Assessment test to see what areas of work we excel in and what frustrates us. We learned that we have very different working geniuses, and that it is a good thing because these differences allow us to collaborate and think of our projects from different perspectives, fully solving them in all areas.

We had a lot of fun this week meeting our master gardeners and groundskeepers, and learning from the professionals in our projects. We even met the new interns who made a lot of noise while we were trying to work, they say that it’s okay since they work for cheep!

Hands-on Garden Experience

In Benton County Keira and Lila went to the Old School Produce Company in Benton, where they learned about the history of the old school and how it became the non-profit garden it is today. They toured the Vinton and Belle Plaine food pantries and took notes on the nutrition provided by the pantry. Right now, they are thinking about what can be done to reduce nutrition insecurity. Keira and some other garden volunteers revamped some of the beds from the 3rd on 3rd community garden in Vinton for an education garden. This week we chose beds from the garden and worked with young volunteers to do some extensive weeding on the vacant beds and the perennial strawberry beds, which now have a lot more room to grow. This week Keira is contacting local summer programs to organize Day Camps about gardening and nutrition. 

Fairground Tour and Research

The project in Linn County is to assist the fair board in designing a new grandstand for their grounds. Lila will take the lead on this project to create some concept sketches and imagery to present to the fair board and to the public. To start off this project, we began with a tour of the Linn County Fairgrounds to get a better idea of what the new design should entail. Lila and Keira also toured the Overlook Pavilion at Pinicon Ridge Park in Central City, Iowa to study potential president buildings. Lila has been busy this past week conversing with fair staff, meeting with local architects, and creating preliminary models and sketches to gather information about the project!