Annual Dinner Program
CCE Steuben
celebrates their Annual Meeting with community awards and trivia
Cornell
Cooperative Extension of Steuben County (CCE-Steuben) celebrated their Annual
Meeting last week with awards and trivia at the Main Place in Hornell. Thanks
go to Farm Credit East and Charles F Oliver and Son
for their sponsorship of the event that helped keep costs down for attendees
and for the support that they provide CCE Steuben and the agriculture
community.
The TRIVIA competition
called “Putting Knowledge to Work (and Play)” was led by Bob Smith of
Bulldog Sounds DJ Services. The team named ”We Probably Won’t Win” took away
the top prize.
CCE Steuben also presented
their annual Friends of Extension awards:
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Campus Connection:
Autumn Lavine
CCE Steuben’s 4-H Staff nominated Autumn Lavine for her critical work with
coordinating 4-H at the New York State Fair for the first time since 2019.
Autumn is an integral part of the New York State 4-H Staff. In her role as
the New York State 4-H State Fair Coordinator, Autumn led county 4-H staff
from across the state through a painful re-introduction to the New York
State Fair. With significant personnel changeover since the last State
Fair with in-person 4-H Participation, Autumn connected with local county
4-H staff regularly to share information and to answer questions. Since
the close of State Fair, Autumn has hosted several listening sessions to
learn more from county staff for improvements for next year.
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Friend of Extension:
Bath Rod and Gun ClubCCE
Steuben recognizes the Bath Rod and Gun Club for the generous use of their
amazing facility. By providing the 4-H Shooting Sports Program access to
their “village”, local youth have had the opportunity to learn and
experience new things while developing their sportsmanship and leadership
skills. Not only have they provided support for the program to hold
multiple classes for multiple disciplines annually over the last few
years, they also agreed to host the 2022 NYS 4-H Spring State Shoot, a
state-wide contest that brings youth from all across New York to compete
and showcase their skills learned through their respective local 4-H
Shooting Sports Program. The members of this organization have
consistently gone above and beyond to help where they can - whether it’s
showing 4-H volunteers how to run equipment or volunteering their time to
make sure things run smoothly. With the help and support from this
club, the 4-H shooting Sports has had the opportunity to grow and
strengthen as a program.
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Outstanding Volunteer:
Christine Towner
The purpose of this award is to recognize a volunteer who has selflessly
donated their time and expertise to CCE Steuben. Christine’s connection to
CCE traces back well over a decade when her daughter joined the Willing
Workers 4-H Club in Cohocton. Throughout her daughter’s 4-H career,
Christine helped in a myriad of ways to support youth who were learning
life skills through hands-on experiences. She has chaperoned 4-H members
at the NYS 4-H Teen Action Rep Retreat (STARR), has been a public
presentations evaluator at the county and district level, has served on
the STARR Planning Committee, and has chaperoned youth to the Citizen
Washington Focus conference in Washington, D.C. – using her connections to
help youth gain access to unique tours and experiences. More
recently, Christine has successfully served for two terms on the 4-H
Program Advisory Committee and has been an active 4-H representative on
the Board of Directors. In these roles, she has supported CCE staff and
programs through six years of challenges and successes, always adding a
bit of comic relief while maintaining clear vision of the goals and
objectives to better serve the community. Her help and guidance have been
particularly impactful this year in the mobilization of the Veggie Van –
which provided residents an opportunity to shop local and eat healthy at
various locations across the county.
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Outstanding Youth:
Trinity Daley
This year’s recipient has been a Steuben County
4-H member for 7 years. Throughout the years, Trinity has shown the true
meaning of 4-H and in her own way is working to “make the best
better”. Just this spring she and her family donated lambs to
4-Her’s interested in learning how to raise sheep. Additionally, she
also hosted two sheep Showmanship and Shearing Clinics at her family’s
farm. Not only did she lead the clinic, but she also allowed and encouraged
others to practice with her animals and worked with each individual to
help improve their skills. This year alone she exhibited in over ten
different project areas which makes for long days at the county fair. In
2021 there was flooding in the southern part of the county and Trinity
sold an extra turkey she had raised as part of the 4-H Market Turkey
Project and all the proceeds raised were given to flood victims. Just days
before the county fair this year, a fellow 4-Her lost their sheep to a
predator attack. Trinity offered to help and stepped up by selling one of
her own sheep to raise money so that the individual that had lost her
sheep would have funding toward next year’s animal. Trinity’s positive
attitude, willingness to help others, and caring heart is what 4-H is all
about.
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Outstanding
Producer: Kyle Lowery of Lowery Family FarmsKyle is
someone who took a chance on CCE Steuben. When CCE Steuben and Christine
Towner wrote a small grant to see if a farmer could take their vehicle and
sell produce in rural places in Steuben, Kyle became that farmer.
With the help of funding from the Office for the Aging and the Corning
Foundation, CCE Steuben implemented the Veggie Van – a nine week program
where Lowery Family Farms went to various rural places in Steuben County
to provide fresh produce to people with limited transportation in food
deserts. He made it a family venture, had amazing customer service
for everyone that came in, and communicated to CCE Steuben as
needed. This pilot was a huge success due to us working with such a
great farmer. Kyle was also one of the farmers that helped with our pilot
of Farm Trail Day. He was so willing to help, that he promoted the
event himself as well in the newspaper and radio. Kyle, along with
four other farms, were wonderful about working with CCE Steuben and being
patient in navigating this new event. We are grateful for farmers like
Kyle and we are looking forward to continuing to work with Kyle Lowery of
Lowery Family Farms!
During
the meeting, Executive Director Tess McKinley welcomed Gabriel Smalt to the
Board of Directors, Robin Robarge and Gabriel Smalt
to the 4-H Program Advisory Committee, Emily Brennan to the Agriculture and
Natural Resources Committee, and Steve Olix, Meghan Smith, and Stacey Wing to the
Community Health and Financial Wellness Committee.
McKinley went on to highlight a few of the impacts CCE
Steuben made on the community during 2022 including:
- Veggie
Van – served approximately 400 people with fresh produce in food deserts
in Steuben County
- Farm
Trail Day – Over 250 families ventured out to learn about farming and
significantly increased sales revenues for five locals farms in our county
- 600
Container Garden Kits distributed in our area with our agency leading that
grant that brought in $38,000 to our agency.
- Shared
Business Network – We applied for and received the bid to be in charge of
the SBN for the Finger Lakes Region of CCE. That means we have three
new employees in Steuben that are serving our seven county region with
finance, IT and human resources services.
- Pavilion
at Haverling Street Park – worked with the Village of Bath, the
Langendorfer family and Rotary to put in a pavilion and started work on a
permaculture garden.
- Brought
in additional funding for providing interim Executive Director coverage to
Livingston County CCE
- Many
Steuben County 4-Hers went to the NYS Fair as well as one who is going to
Nationals for horse judging
- $84,000
brought in by 4-Hers that sold their animals at the Livestock sale at the
fair
- $47,000
sold by 4-Hers for their fundraiser this year. Steuben County 4-H is
the biggest fundraiser for Cuba Cheese and Wilson Beef Farms. We
also introduced Golden Age Cheese to the mix this year.
- Approximately
300 4-Hers benefited from programming from approximately 50 leaders and
key volunteers.
- Over
400 individuals have benefited from our financial education programs in
2022, including approximately 50 women who attended our Women’s Financial
Conference and many individuals that received budget counseling.
- Our
two nutrition programs (SNAP Ed and EFNEP) that have 14 staff, with 6 of
them in Steuben County provided education to over 6,800 people in the 2022
year. Our SNAP Ed program brings in over $800,000 into our county to
provide education to at risk populations.
- Our
agriculture teams – FLGP, CVP and SWNY DLFC are highly trained specialists
supporting local farms right here in Steuben County. Just in the
last year FLGP worked one on one with 150 growers, CVP worked with 2343
growers and the SWNY team worked with 1480 growers, with many of those
farmers being right here in Steuben. The teams also had
approximately 6,000 people in 2022 attend their educational classes.
I also encourage that you grab them for your trivia team as they do very
well every year!
McKinley recognized the support CCE
Steuben has had from so many people as the reason for its strong mission of
putting knowledge to work in Steuben County. CCE Steuben puts knowledge to work in
pursuit of economic vitality, ecological sustainability, and social well-being.
This is accomplished through the following programs: 4-H Youth Development,
Agriculture and Natural Resources, Extended Food and Nutrition Education
Program, Financial and Consumer Wellness, and the SNAP Education Southern
Finger Lakes Program. CCE Steuben is a nonprofit that brings local experience
and research-based solutions from Cornell University together, helping New York
State families and communities thrive in our rapidly changing world.
Last updated November 8, 2022