- Author: Jeannette Warnert
The best way to help people out of poverty, is to help them manage money, says UC Cooperative Extension nutrition, family and consumer sciences advisor Margaret Johns. The Kern County-based advisor followed that maxim throughout her career to help low-income families lead better lives. After 26 years with UC Cooperative Extension, Johns retires June 30.
When Johns was first hired, she taught agencies how to use a UC Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR) curriculum called “Money Sense.”
“Since I had just completed 10 years working with the Kern County agency on aging, I was very familiar with the 25 senior centers in the county,” Johns said. “I started a train-the-trainer program with the Money Sense program. We trained 150 agency staff throughout the county and, through them, reached thousands of low-income individuals and families. It was very successful.”
In 1995, funds became available from the USDA to offer the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program in Kern County. Johns hired the staff and made community connections to offer the education to low-income Kern County families, and she continued to push life skills education for her clientele.
“I have changed more people's eating habits teaching goal setting and financial literacy than I ever did in nutrition,” she said.
Johns shared an example of one woman who lived in a low-income housing project and wanted to buy her own house. When she sat down with a curriculum that outlined budgeting and goal setting, she realized she was spending $300 per month on fast food.
“So the woman stopped eating fast food, cooked at home and in time was able to save enough money for a down payment,” Johns said. “She bought a house and lost 30 pounds! When you set a goal, it's your own choice. You're not being told what to do. If I had told her to stop eating fast food, I'm not sure she would have done it.”
This philosophy shaped another curriculum Johns helped write when the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996 (welfare reform) was signed by then-President Bill Clinton. A team of 25 UC Cooperative Extension advisors and specialists from around the state agreed that compliance with the law would require former welfare recipients to learn life skills and financial literacy. “Gateway to a Better Life” was developed.
Completed in 2000, the curriculum taught people with little or no work experience the skills for getting a job, staying employed and balancing the demands of work and home. In time, an abbreviated, lower literacy version of the training – “Making Every Dollar Count” – was created by members of the team and offered as an online, self-paced tutorial. A separate program – “Money Talks 4 Teens” – was another team effort. Called Money Talks for short, the program was designed to teach money management to the younger set using colorful graphics, interactive computer games and professional videos. It is available online at MoneyTalks4Teens.org.
All of the programs were honored with distinguished service awards from UC ANR. Money Talks was also recognized by the Western Extension Directors Association, and continues to be used for training teenagers about financial literacy today.
Johns is seeking emeritus status and, during retirement, plans to serve as a volunteer advisor to a UC Master Food Preserver program to be offered to Native American tribes in Inyo and Mono counties. She said she also looks forward to having the time for her creative pursuits, including scrapbooking, sewing, making jewelry and other crafts.
“I have a Pinterest page with thousands of ideas I want to make,” she said.
Many paths lead to the University of California Cooperative Extension, and it was the pursuit of a pig that eventually led Holly George to become the first woman hired as a livestock advisor by UC Cooperative Extension. After a 33-year career as a UC Cooperative Extension livestock advisor, the last 28 years serving Plumas and Sierra counties, George will retire on June 30.
“My foray into livestock production started in the sixth grade when I caught a pig in the pig-scramble at the Yuba-Sutter 4-H Demonstration Day and raised it for the county fair,” recalled George, the oldest of eight children. “I was in a 4-H clothing project when I caught the pig.”
As an active member of 4-H and Future Farmers of America, the Yuba City native raised more than 350 hogs and several market lambs before her senior year of high school. Through FFA's Work Experience Abroad Program, she worked on a dairy and fruit farm in Switzerland.
George graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo with a Bachelor of Science degree in animal science and a credential to teach high school agriculture. After nearly a year working on sheep and cattle stations in New Zealand and Australia, she studied grazing strategies on rangelands at Utah State University to earn her Master of Science degree in animal science.
In 1983 she started working in Alameda and Contra Costa counties as a UC Cooperative Extension livestock, range and land-use advisor. In 1987, George moved north to become the livestock and 4-H youth development advisor for Plumas-Sierra counties, where she later became UC Cooperative Extension director for the counties and started the local UC Master Gardener Program.
“Although I was the first woman hired by UC Cooperative Extension as a livestock advisor, there were a few other women advisors and they were very supportive,” said George. “I'll always be grateful for the enduring support of the Ladies of Extension throughout my career.”
Communication, networking and learning together have been common themes of her extension programs.
During the 1990s George organized annual Three-Forest Permittee meetings for ranchers interested in livestock grazing on the Plumas, Lassen and Tahoe national forests. These meetings led her to collaborate with colleagues from Chico State University, U.S. Forest Service, Natural Resources Conservation Service and UC Cooperative Extension to develop workshops and educational materials on rangeland monitoring and native plants.
To help ranchers comply with irrigated lands regulations, she engaged scientists, Regional Water Quality Control Board staff and ranchers in a project to examine the impact of livestock grazing on water quality and discuss policy. In 2011, the State Water Resources Control Board approved her proposal to work with local landowners and monitor water quality in the Upper Feather River watershed, which saved the landowners an estimated $80,000 for additional studies.
“Holly has always been a great networker, bringing the ag community together and understanding our needs, especially the ranching community,” said rancher Gary Romano.
George collaborated with Davis artist jesikah maria ross on “Passion for the Land,” a multimedia project that featured 12 rural residents in Plumas and Sierra counties describing how they preserve the community's heritage while protecting agricultural lands and natural resources for future generations. After viewing the Passion for the Land videos, the Plumas County Planning Commission added optional agriculture and water elements to the county's General Plan Update.
“Putting together the Passion for the Land storytelling and the Barns, Birds and BBQ tours brought awareness about what ranching and farming practices have been in the county for generations, and their value to our local economy,” said Romano, who appears in one of the videos.
“In a geographically isolated place, it is hard to have your voice heard,” George said. “Over the course of my career, I have explored different ways to bring people together and help them share their stories across the challenges of distance and ideology.”
Accolades for Passion for the Land inspired her to create the Toolkit for Change to guide others who want to use personal stories to help sustain rural communities. She was invited to teach digital storytelling to agriculture communication students at Chico State University.
“I loved working with young people and watching them grow over time,” she said. “I enjoyed the digital storytelling project with jesikah maria ross and ag and nature tourism efforts with Ellie Rilla and Penny Leff.”
In 2005, she worked with local ranchers and farmers, High Sierra RC&D, Audubon Society, Feather River Land Trust and Sierra Business Council to organize Barns, Birds and BBQ, an event in Sierra Valley for the public to learn about agriculture stewardship, conservation and biodiversity.
In 2013, she took a sabbatical leave to study rural community development by linking agriculture, art, local food, recreation and tourism. Since then she has brought together local artisans, agriculturists and business and conservation members to explore opportunities for collaboration. The group will launch the Sierra Valley Art & Ag Trail in October.
In retirement, George, who has been granted emeritus status in UC Agriculture and Natural Resources, plans to remain in Quincy and participate in community development activities. She also looks forward to creative ventures like woodworking and mixed fiber arts.
- Author: Jeannette Warnert
As manager of UC ANR News and Information Outreach in Spanish (NOS), Grajales-Hall has worked with California's Spanish-language news media, produced radio and video programs, and adapted newsletters, curricula, scripts, brochures and press releases to inform the community on obesity and diabetes prevention, ecologically sound pest management, farmworker safety, emergency preparedness and youth development.
When Grajales-Hall was a teenager studying English in her native Bogotá, Colombia, she set her sights on working at the United Nations. She asked her parents for their permission to travel to the United States for intensive language instruction, never believing they would allow their shy daughter to venture so far from home. But permission was granted.
While studying languages at California State University, San Bernardino, she was hired to do clerical work at a Spanish language radio station in Redlands. The staff soon recognized the pleasant tonal quality of her voice.
“I started doing commercials. Then they asked me to do public affairs,” she said. “I began working on news. That's how it all started.”
A radio station colleague went to work for UC Cooperative Extension, and five months later recruited Grajales-Hall to be his part-time assistant. Two years later she came on full time and six years after that, Grajales-Hall was named the manager.
“I wanted to work for the UN, and ended up with the UC,” Grajales-Hall said. “One letter changed my life. And it couldn't have been any better.”
When Grajales-Hall came to the university in 1982, the Latino population in California was about 5 million. Today, the population has more than tripled.
“I am so impressed that 35 years ago, the University of California and Cooperative Extension had the foresight to establish an outreach service to the Spanish-speaking population,” Grajales-Hall said. “I've had the privilege to work with dozens of dedicated, brilliant UC academics and educators, and to assist them with their outreach efforts. I've learned so much from them.”
The program began with a monthly radio feed to 20 Spanish-language radio stations. As technology advanced continuously over the years, NOS, under Grajales-Hall's leadership, kept up with the times.
Reel-to-reel tapes gave way to cassettes, and then CDs. Now radio spots will be shared in MP3 format. The media needs also changed. In the early 1980s, radio stations welcomed 30 minutes of programming from UC. But in today's world of shortened attention spans, the team made adjustments.
“We still do radio. It's a viable way to get information out to the Latino community. But today we are lucky to get one minute of air time,” Grajales-Hall said. “Some stations only want 30-second spots.”
More information is shared via the program's website, and feeds on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Through the years, Grajales-Hall and her staff made sure timely and practical information from the UC Cooperative Extension reached Spanish-speaking Californians.
“Coming from a different country, as an immigrant, I see the great value in the information and education we can provide to other immigrants in California,” Grajales-Hall said. “I understood their issues and concerns, their difficulty in navigating the system. To be able to make a difference, whether large or small, was always exciting.”
In retirement, Grajales-Hall envisions change, but will continue to serve her community.
“I came across a word doing translation research: ecdysis. That's when an insect sheds its skin and transforms. It's a time of great promise, of renewal, of transformation, and of vulnerability. That's how I feel about retirement,” Grajales-Hall said. “When you retire, you find yourself without the constraints of time and space. I'm looking forward to the time and space to redefine my life.”
In addition to traditional retirement pursuits of travel and relaxation, Grajales-Hall has esoteric endeavors on her to-do list.
“I want to be mindful. I want to see the sunrises and sunsets. I want to walk more on the beach,” she said. “I want to learn Italian, volunteer, scrapbook, spend time with family and friends and teach ESL (English as a second language). I want to serve, I want to give back.”
Kathleen Nelson Feicht, UC Davis alumna and Food Science Leadership Board member, published an online biography of Barrett. To read about Barrett's research and career in the free book, visit https://issuu.com/ucdavisfoodscience/docs/barrett_book_final.
Topics include ecological classification and impacts of aquatic weeds, biology of aquatic weeds, physical and chemical characteristics of aquatic ecosystems, regulatory issues, developing an aquatic management plan, aquatic weed identification, equipment demonstration, adjuvants and surfactants for aquatic systems, pest prevention for aquatic weeds, physical and mechanical control methods, biological control, chemical and non-chemical control, and a case study of a complex management plan.
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Need more information? Contact Gale Pérez with the UC Weed Research and Information Center (530)752-1748, gperez@ucdavis.edu.