成人影院

Making A Difference in Our County

University of Georgia Cooperative Extension is working hard for its constituents. The following are examples of Extension’s impact in the county over the past year.

Agriculture and Natural Resources

The Elbert County Agriculture and Natural Resources agent, with the support of the Elbert County Cattlemen’s Association and 成人影院 Elbert County Extension staff, completed training sessions for 54 producers. The pesticide credits earned at these trainings were valued at $1,560. However, the training and credits were free to these producers. Forty of the producers received 2 hours of continuing education credits through the approved course.? ?Producers who attended the training spend an average of $3,000.00 annually on pesticides and an?average of?$20,000.00 each in income from agricultural endeavors. This training contributed to maintaining the $1,080,000 in revenue that Elbert County producers contribute to the economy with their agricultural operations.

Throughout 2024, the Elbert County ANR agent has completed fifteen different nutrient management plans for local poultry farm producers.? By completing these plans, the producers qualified for the funds to build a stackhouse barn on each farm to store dry litter in.? These stackhouses provide a covered, dry storage area for the producers to store dry chicken litter and compost chicken carcasses. ?Working closely with the local USDA Farm Service Agency and NRCS office, the Elbert County ANR agent was able to send the plans directly to their office, in addition to each producer getting a copy of the plan for their personal use.? This expedited the funding process and ensured the funding was captured by each producer.? The size of each stackhouse varied somewhat from farm to farm, depending on the?number of head present on the farm and the?type of operation.? The smallest stackhouse was fifty by one hundred feet, and the larger ones were fifty by one hundred fifty feet.? Stackhouses provide financial and environmental benefits to each producer.? The average cost of each stackhouse was $105,000. ?The total amount of USDA funding received was $3,159,105 by producers in Elbert County. Producers took advantage of the funding through nutrient management planning services provided by their Agriculture and Natural Resource agent in Elbert County.

4-H Youth Development

Elbert County 4-H continues a strong partnership with Elbert County Middle School, where each student in the fifth through eighth grades receives in-school club programming. Due to this collaboration, the 4-H Staff is able to go above and beyond regular monthly in-school club meetings to also offer the Georgia 4-H Journeys in Health and Safety: The Opioid Crisis program with all seventh-grade students. Elbert County 4-H partnered with Elbert County Farm Bureau to offer a three-day “camp” for children during the summer. Participants were exposed to various realms of agriculture including vegetable production, livestock production, water quality, natural pest control, animal health and food origin.? Elbert County 4-H works diligently with the Elbert Partners for Health Mental Health & Substance Abuse Task Force, Elbert County Farm Bureau, and Keep Elbert County Beautiful. These affiliations bring extra resources to 4-H programming. Afterschool activities include a sixth grade “Earthies” Science Club, ELEVATE Club (Engaging Learners to Explore and Value Agriculture, Technology and the Environment), and Young Riders Horse Club. Competitive events beyond District Project Achievement include Horse Quiz Bowl, Life Smarts, Horse Judging, Livestock Judging, Shotgun Team, and Poultry Judging.

Family and Consumer Sciences

Many issues facing our children, adults, families, and communities can be addressed by Family & Consumer Sciences programming. In Elbert County, the Family & Consumer Sciences (FACS) agent made the following impact.

• Free tax assistance and e-filing for basic returns were offered by appointment from February until April. The agent and the Virtual VITA volunteers at 成人影院 completed 110 Federal Returns and 115 State Returns, which resulted in $116,181 in Federal Refunds and $33,698 in State Refunds. Over $27,406 of the total refunds were from Earned Income Tax Credits and an additional $20,643 from Child Tax Credits or credit for other dependents.? More than $45,000 was saved in tax preparation fees by Elbert County tax filers.?
  
• The Prevent T2 cohort that started in January of 2024 was being held on Tuesday nights and had 17 participants. This class consists of fourteen participants who are at-risk for Type 2 diabetes and two participants who had already been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes as well as one who found out they had diabetes after the A1c’s were drawn by the local doctor’s office. At the mid-point of the year-long program, the Prevent T2 class had lost a total of 138.6 lbs. The goal is for participants to lose 4-5% of their body weight in the first six months. Six of the participants met this goal and a seventh met the goal before the end of September. Our partnership with the local Medical Center was strengthened when they agreed to handle taking A1c’s in January and again in November for class participants. The Medical Center sent two employees to our meeting location to handle the paperwork and testing.? The total value of this service is estimated at $1,000. The A1c testing also identified one participant as having diabetes when his A1c results were 6.6. The final A1c testing will be done in November 2024, so the data/results aren’t available.