How to Convene a Local Food Council for Positive Impact in Your Community

IMPACT. 1: Miami County residents formed an umbrella group that is creating a virtual farmers market, a shared-use commercial kitchen, a food summit, a locavore dinner, and other marketing materials and directories. -- 2. The Miami County Virtual Market team received a $45,000 USDA grant to hire a manager and launch an online market in 2016 to connect consumers with local foods through technology. -- 3. In September 2015, a Food Summit (82 participants) and a Locavore Farm Dinner (140 persons) highlighted efforts to expand local food production, distribution, consumption; business-to-business connections; and networking for collaborations.OSU PARTNERS: College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences; OSU Extension; Glenn College of Public AffairsCOMMUNITY PARTNERS: The Miami County Foundation; Miami County Public Health; Edison State Community College; Miami County Commissioners; University of DaytonPRIMARY CONTACT: Brian Raison ([email protected])The local food movement is creating jobs and improving health by expanding our "food system" (the growing, processing, distributing, consuming, and composting/recycling of food). Communities are supporting sustainable farming and providing better access to food insecure areas. But how do you bring everyone together to make things happen? One idea is to develop a Local Food Council. This program will help connect citizens, public policymakers, private business leaders and not-for-profit institutions to make an impact

Doing the Work of Extension: Three Approaches to Identify, Amplify, and Implement Outreach

This article explores the literature and practice of how the Cooperative Extension Service does its work and asks if traditional outreach and engagement models have room for innovative delivery mechanisms that may identify emerging trends and help meet community needs. It considers three innovative approaches to the educational mission: sense-making, contextual (typological) framing, and an internal starting with why concept. It discusses how each might offer processes that would help Extension workers identify and act on community needs, and how the approaches could become critical work skills that will help sustain Extension in the future

How to Convene a Local Food Council for Positive Impact in Your Community

IMPACT. 1: Miami County residents formed an umbrella group that is creating a virtual farmers market, a shared-use commercial kitchen, a food summit, a locavore dinner, and other marketing materials and directories. -- 2. The Miami County Virtual Market team received a $45,000 USDA grant to hire a manager and launch an online market in 2016 to connect consumers with local foods through technology. -- 3. In September 2015, a Food Summit (82 participants) and a Locavore Farm Dinner (140 persons) highlighted efforts to expand local food production, distribution, consumption; business-to-business connections; and networking for collaborations.OSU PARTNERS: College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences; OSU Extension; Glenn College of Public AffairsCOMMUNITY PARTNERS: The Miami County Foundation; Miami County Public Health; Edison State Community College; Miami County Commissioners; University of Dayton; How to Convene a Local Food Council for Positive Impact in Your Community; HowPRIMARY CONTACT: Brian Raison ([email protected])The local food movement is creating jobs and improving health by expanding our "food system" (the growing, processing, distributing, consuming, and composting/recycling of food). Communities are supporting sustainable farming and providing better access to food insecure areas. But how do you bring everyone together to make things happen? One idea is to develop a Local Food Council. This program will help connect citizens, public policymakers, private business leaders and not-for-profit institutions to make an impact

Engaged Partnering: Join the New OSU Extension Leadership Network

Would you like to be better connected with colleagues across campus and across Ohio who are working on leadership programming? Earlier this year, we launched a new participatory knowledge network of innovative people, programs, and resources focused on developing high quality leadership in the individuals, organizations, and communities we serve. This "Leadership Network" offers a virtual means of meeting, exploring and sharing ideas for leadership initiatives and working groups that will ultimately benefit our outreach and engagement work across the university and the state. Many of us are working on leadership. We share a common interest in developing, supporting and sustaining individual, organizational, and community leadership programming. But doing so requires multi-disciplinary and multi-stakeholder engagement. Information about best practices, models, successes, and results from pilot projects are needed. The main goal of this new network is to provide resources, collaboration opportunities and collegial interaction to build or improve leadership programs. Participants in this poster session will learn how to log in and participate in this online community. Our nascent eXtension leadership network presently consists of five thematic working groups focused on: 1) Intersections of leadership theory and practice: are we teaching deeper theory to underpin our practical programming? Can we engage at a deeper level? 2) Leadership program delivery: new approaches? online? audiences? groups? 3) Internal leadership development: professional development for OSU Extension educators (250+ across Ohio), as well as on-campus faculty and staff in partnership with the OSU Leadership Center; foundations of practice components. 4) Cultural competencies/diversity: How might leadership programming intersect here? And 5) Evaluation and follow-up: How do we know we engaged clients at higher learning/cognition levels (Fink/Bloom/etc). The audience is educators, researchers, staff, faculty, and others interested in sharing dialogue, research, teaching, ideas, and energy around the broad topic of leadership. Brian Raison has served Ohio State's Department of Extension for more than 20 years. He works as an assistant professor and field specialist in leadership development. He has done extensive research and teaching in local food systems, strategic planning and capacity building. He holds a bachelor's in business, a master's in sociology, and a Ph.D. in agricultural and Extension education. He also volunteers with faith-based service organizations across the United States and overseas.AUTHOR AFFILIATION: Brian Raison, Assistant Professor, The Ohio State University Extension, [email protected] (Corresponding Author).Would you like to be better connected with colleagues across campus and across Ohio who are working on leadership programming? Join educators, researchers, staff, faculty and others in this new "Leadership Network" that offers a virtual means of meeting, exploring and sharing ideas for leadership initiatives via working groups that will ultimately benefit our outreach and engagement leadership work across the university and the state

Farm-to-Hospital Research Findings Point to Opportunities for Extension

Extension has a history of local foods programming around farm to institution. But connections with hospitals, an industry sector with significant potential for increased local food purchasing, appear limited. Hospital outreach could provide inroads for patient and employee education around healthy eating. But does Extension know how to engage healthcare foodservice? Do hospital foodservice directors have knowledge of Extension? This article focuses on intersections at which Extension can approach hospitals to help improve health and the economy through local foods. It is based on findings excerpted from a comprehensive Ohio hospital foodservice director study (n=155) conducted in late 2014

Using Wordle: A Fun Tool to Show Frequency, Purpose and Direction

Have you ever seen a Wordle? It’s that funny jumble of words that are all different sizes and directions. Whether working with youth or adults, Wordles can be a powerful visual tool that can help a group discover key themes, help an individual display main thoughts from a paper, and can provide artwork or visuals for reports, marketing materials, etc. You can make one in less than five minutes. Learn how here