Progress 09/30/22 to 09/29/23

Outputs
Target Audience:1. Providing agricultural training for students in real-world working environments 2. Enable food service staff to continue providing healthy meals to rural and impoverished youth 3. Support paid apprenticeships in the areas of beef, poultry, pork, and other agricultural related work areas (25 per year each with a $2,500.00 stipend) 4. Support supplies and training with Servsafe and specific work-related supplies (boots, lab coats, masks, gloves and head covering up to ($472.00 per apprentice) annually 5. Our students harvested their very own radishes from the school garden. It's amazing to see them bringing their hard work from start to finish. Stay Local was designed to be a fully sustainable, systems-based community effort to feed vulnerable youth while building the local economy. Following a one-time infusion of Federal funds to jumpstart community collaboration and coordination, the initiative will continue. Sustainability features include: • Stay Local will build relationships with local farms, establishing contracts for local food procurement that will be annually renewable with little additional effort. • New coursework will be adopted into the course catalogue of Jeff Davis High School, continuing to leverage partnershipswith local protein and produce farms long into the future, building a local workforce of farmers. • The Stay Local Consortium will sustain, meeting at least quarterly to discuss effective strategies and new opportunities to maximize limited resources to best meet the needs of rural youth and families in southeast Georgia. • Agricultural education experiences for K-8 students will be sustained, relying on volunteers, in-kind donations from Consortium members, outside funding sources, and internal JDCSD funds to promote nutrition education and awareness of agricultural careers for years beyond the funding period. Changes/Problems: Increase activities at middle school and high school level as new teachers settle into their new roles in their prospective schools. Increase number of apprenticeship placements. Increase the number of protein and fruit and vegetable contracts within the consortium and the schools. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Because of the demand for agricultural needs in the area all elementary schools will have AG programs starting August 2023 full-time K-12. This is not an easy task and one that HealtHIE Georgia is very proud to help support and grow. This means that every K-8 student will have an opportunity to have a minimum of 9 weeks of AG exposure, education and skill building during the school year and at the 3-5 grade level daily exposure through a STEM rotation system. This call for expanded education called for an expanded need for services. In the budget descriptions of the activities and support outreach will be discussed and explained to demonstrate how all this wonderful education and outreach has evolved. Support for expanded raised beds for two elementary schools for year-round fruit and vegetable growing, a greenhouse for hydroponic growing and harvesting at the largest of the K-5 elementary school, a chicken coop unit and a livestock holding pen barn are among the things this initiative has been able to support and will continue to expand through the remainder of this funding initiative and beyond. Networking with farmers and local community organizations to support our funds going as far as they can some in-kind donations for pieces of needed items will expand the service allotted from our Stay Local Initiative. The 4-H Beef Project will be expanded to support youth who are unable to obtain the cattle needed to show due to cost. They will be paired with a Stay Local Farmer as an apprentice and in return the farmer will provide the calf for the apprentice to raise and show in the annual sale. Cabbage farmers collaborated with schools, food shelters and local faith-based community support organizations to distribute cabbage grown as a part of an apprenticeships "out of season" products in between their blueberry harvesting and production seasons. One of the largest counties in Georgia to serve migrant students six students that are a part of the twenty served in Appling are a part of the ESL program as well with English not being their native language. These students through their capstone activities will be working to set goals related to post-secondary education the need for ESL services at the post-secondary level and support in completing applications and/or appropriate documents to be able to be successful post high school. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Community Fairs and SchoolEvents Young Farmer Coordinator, Kelcie Marchant gives monthly reports to the Regional Young Farmers Association regarding the activities, support and bi-annual plans for the regions Ag Programs. The Project Director presented December 2023 to the Appling County Board of Education a summary of activities and services that were provided or sponsored in some way by the Stay Local Program. During teacher work session days in January the Project Director will be visiting the various sites for updates, needs, Spring and Summer apprenticeship placement and to evaluate any need for goal modification. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?All goals will continue to be focused on in their current implementation. Expansion of teachers involved at the k-12 levels will be a focus as expansion of the number of apprenticeship sites that sponsor experiential learning activities. Twenty-Five students/units of apprenticeship will be supported in the 2024 service year with an increase in the Jeff Davis and Candler sites as their programs have grown in stability and facilities have been erected through other funding to support more school-based experiential learning. Keep communities healthy by: Providing agricultural training for students in real-world working environments Enable food service staff to continue providing healthy meals to rural and impoverished youth Support paid apprenticeships in the areas of beef, poultry, pork, and other agricultural related work areas (25 per year each with a $2,500.00 stipend) Support supplies and training with Servsafe and specific work-related supplies (boots, lab coats, masks, gloves and head covering up to ($472.00 per apprentice) annually Our students harvested their very own radishes from the school garden. It's amazing to see them bringing their hard work from start to finish.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? The Stay Local HealtHIE Initiative has had a successful first year of implementation with both networking between, the sites of Appling, Candler and Jeff Davis County School Systems and their communities. Due to the various stages of staff availability and agriculture volume some of the systems have had greater volume participation during the first three quarters. As we transition into summer months where students at the 9-12 level will be deeply embedded in work-based apprenticeship and capstone experiences, the educators, farmers, and community partners will be aggressively at work expanding the experience opportunities at the K-8 level for the beginning of the 2023-2024 school year that will begin the last week of July for educators and the first week of August for students. As COVID has evolved and partnerships have expanded the need for specific items for student apprentices and K-8 students for participation has changed. This will be demonstrated in the project and budget summary allocations for the projects that are currently in place as well as the ones that will continue and/or expand throughout the summer months transitioning into the next school year. Educators retiring, new program expansions and the availability of slots for student participation has evolved through the pandemic as well. Appling County: A large focus on safety with food handling across the grade levels has been important with the need to encourage proper hygiene in general to combat spreading germs in general. Students at the K-8 level have had the opportunity to grow fresh vegetables in small, raised beds, interact, and visit large blueberry and strawberry farms where apprentices work and bring back to the school fruits for healthy snacks and treats with lunch. High school students have raised swine and beef learning the skills to care for them prior to sale and the requirements for them to be "sale" ready, worked in chicken houses collecting eggs that are sold fresh in the community and provided in-kind to the local food shelter, apprenticed are large blueberry farms that operate year round and do traditional and organic growing of berries with dissemination to summer school students, food shelters for the less fortunate and to be canned at the Appling County Regional Canning Plant during seasonal canning plant activities. The Appling County Regional Canning Plant incorporates all the Agriculture Staff from the school system, apprentices, and local farmers to operate the months of June and July. This year, through our expansion six apprentices will be able to work in the plant helping community members prepare fresh fruits and vegetables from their own farms or that have been harvested and purchased locally. Many of these individuals have no experience with the canning and food stabilization process and this supports them and their families to have safe nutrition in a cost-effective manner throughout the next year. Apprentices under the supervision of the school personnel will participate in every aspect of the process from accurate weighing, logging, and storing of the product, to cleaning, prepping canning and stabilization through the cooling set time. They will then follow up with the disbursement and allocation to the consumer or food bank the finished products in a manner that will be stored without spoiling during the next year. Appling County's large agricultural arena has expanded into the slaughtering market for swine and beef during this phase of our initiative. Due to materials delay and inspection requirements the abattoir did not open as expected in the Fall but is up and running now and will support at least two apprentices in the upcoming year. This year Appling County housed the state swine and beef 4-H sale for youth that participate in the 4-H program and supported over thirty students within the county inhousing their swine during the feeding and grooming process in preparation for sale. Jeff Davis County: Jeff Davis County and its residents utilize this facility as well for their community. Smaller in size Jeff Davis County has been busy embedding and growing its K-8 AG Program and participated in AG Day where students were able to learn about growing, harvesting, and preparing fruits and vegetables. Preparing for that activity lessons were incorporated through the STEM segments of the educational day for students to learn the necessary components needed to actively participate in the activities. Two apprentices were utilized through Beasley Products, INC to grow bedding plants serving both the wholesale and public for product dissemination. One apprentice was utilized through the school food nutrition system one block a day as not only a life skills course completion requirement, but as a means of job skill obtainment as well. This student is served through a 504 Plan and/or IEP and this safe handling of food, accurate These students will complete their Capstone Activities this summer and then off to college they will go in the fall. Jeff Davis plans to expand their apprentices to four during the next school term as their AG Barn will be complete and they will begin live animal handling and care as well as expansion of their school poultry project with eggs being utilized in the lunchrooms as applicable for meals.

Publications

• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2023 Citation: Lee K, Ritter, M & Lee, F. (2023) Co-Occurring Conditions: Obstacles to Care in Rural Areas. Int J Nurs & Healt Car Scie 03(09): 2023-255.