In a year that continues to take unpleasant twists and turns, there continue to be bright spots along the way! Please welcome Douglas Amaral to UC ANR. Douglas started on October 1, 2020 as the CE Pomology and Water/Soils Area Advisor, based in Hanford, California, with programmatic responsibilities in Kings and Tulare Counties. I look forward to meeting Douglas.

This year's recipient of the National Diversity in Extension Award that recognizes significant contributions and accomplishments in achieving and sustaining diversity and pluralism has a UC ANR connection. The University of Missouri's 4-H Center for Youth Development is the recipient in 2020. We knew Lupita Fabergas would do great things in her role at the University of Missouri, here' one piece of evidence! USDA-NIFA and Cooperative Extension have sponsored the awards since 1991. The award will be presented virtually on October 28. If you have remained in touch with Lupita, please send her a note of congratulations!

Thanks to Sara Garcia Figuera and team, there is a new resource available that summarizes HLB research. Working with Beth Grafton-Cardwell, Monique Rivera, and Neil McRoberts, Sara compiled and summarized research data to update an important brochure for citrus growers. Take a look! It is always exciting to see graduate students excited about Cooperative Extension. Hopefully, Sara continues such outreach efforts throughout her promising career.

It is hard to believe that this is Program Council week again already! This month's meeting focused on ways to creatively reduce our reliance on traditional funding sources. The goal is to stay ahead of the COVID-related economic challenges that are upon us and will likely have multi-year impacts. Fortunately, if we are proactive, we can use the value of and need for our programs to move us forward. Listening to the Governor's call late Wednesday where he laid out his plan for the Executive Order related to agriculture, I see many, many opportunities for us.

The Vice President's Council meets on Thursday. The business unit directors and statewide program/institute directors will hear about the tools and guidance developed to help all of us identify and implement opportunities for cost recovery and income generation. We will talk about efforts in specific programs to advance diversity, inclusion, and equity within the program. During the VP Council we will have a brief update on the strategic planning efforts. The drafts for both the division and the RECs are out for review. If you can make the time for review, we would appreciate your feedback!

There is more good news for our nutrition programs. During the National Extension Association of Family and Consumer Sciences (NEAFCS) Virtual Annual Session team members were recognized for their outstanding contributions. Deepa Srivastava, and UCCE Tulare-Kings Nutrition Education Team placed second in the Western Region SNAP-ED/EFNEP award. This on the heels of a win last year! Mary and her CalFresh Healthy Living, UC Team in Alameda County are the 3rd Place Regional winner of the Community Partnership award. And, Mary Blackburn received the NEAFCS Hall of Fame Award! I've had to keep that one quiet for about a month now, but am so pleased to share the news! Congratulations to all! And, thanks to Katie for sharing the news!

Speaking of the UCCE Tulare office, they have quite the sense of humor. Take a look at their door sign. No doubt some are better able to estimate the length of a Holstein cow. Perhaps social distancing won't last long enough for all to learn that measure. It's hard to tell. Who would have guessed back in March that seasonal face coverings would be a fashion trend? Just to stay in practice for pre-COVID behaviors, I put on grown up clothes and sat in my real office today, downloading computer updates and grabbing some items to make life a bit easier in the garage. It was nice to be in the office for a brief visit before putting my face covering back on and moving into the rest of the day.

UCCE Tulare shows off its humor while acknowledging the local dairy industry

Glenda shared that she's been hearing great things about one of our 4-H projects focused on getting rural communities to fill out the census (https://ucanr.edu/sites/census/).  “They've received kudos from county supervisors, farm bureau leaders and many others who saw the materials and really appreciated the help to make sure their communities were counted.  This is a great 4-H civic engagement project”!! Let's hope everyone turns out to vote in November, too!

Strategic planning work is winding down, both for UC ANR as a whole and for the RECs. Last week the ANR planning team met to review and incorporate feedback from the August webinars. I have already finished my homework! Later this week the REC planning team meets and I am hoping to pass any homework assignments on to others. I will miss the Town Hall this week, but hope there is strong attendance to hear about all the great things Ricardo and his team are doing to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month.

I have almost completed my assignments for a national conference to be held next week so perhaps the weekend can focus on yard work. I think weed growth may be slowing a bit.

I couldn't wait until next week to share some more of the great stories we are hearing.

Overall, our day of meetings with our state elected representatives went very well yesterday. Most of our visits included key volunteers, coordinators, or program participants. Having these individuals as part of the conversations helped showcase our work during the visits. I learned a number of things during our conversations. From Lorrene's comments I learned that more youth consume a sugar-sweetened beverage daily than consume a vegetable. Maggie shared that in San Bernardino, the Master Gardeners have partnered with local churches to leave seeds for residents to plant at home. Keith talked a bit about the Seeds to Plate program with Venice Middle School. We were fortunate to be joined by Mathew who was able to break away from his spring sampling to talk about the research he is conducting after the Thomas Fire. Yana talked broadly about the prescribed fire efforts across the state.

Yana had a particularly busy day with advocacy visits and hosting portions of a remote conference. Initially Yana had planned an in-person conference, expecting approximately 60 registrants. As a result of having to suspend in-person meetings, like others across UC ANR, Yana move the conference to Zoom and spread the sessions over several days. To everyone's surprise, the event attracted 300 participants! I'm curious how many others have had the same experience. I know we have finite capacity to deliver meetings. I have considered our capacity as the barrier to reaching more people. To a large extent that is likely the case. What I hadn't thought much about was our client's finite ability to travel and attend our in-person events. Perhaps we can attract larger audiences by delivering more program virtually. Assessment of how best to provide adequate engagement to foster behavioral change remains a gap. However, drawing on the Federal impact report that is in development by Katherine Webb-Martinez we can make a safe inference that online learning can be as effective as in-person meetings:

• Research conducted by one UCCE academic found that both the online and in-person food safety extension of the Make it Safe, Keep it Safe program resulted in positive and statistically significant change among clientele. These findings confirm that this existing, cost-effective practice of delivering federally-funded programs online is just as effective as in-person extension in reaching its goals. (Christine Bruhn and Katherine Soule)

One of our 4-H youth that joined us on a call yesterday shared that she is one of the many making masks to supply local health care professional. If you haven't seen this 1-minute video about our 4-H youth involvement in the mask challenge, take a look. It is fantastic! Nice job Ricardo and team! The recently released 4-H annual report is worth a read as well. The numbers for program participation are impressive and the work, outstanding.

While you are surfing, Frank sent us the link to a KCBS radio story about the Oakland plant sale and the impact this year's program is having in the local community. All around the state, the people of California are grateful to the Master Gardeners for their efforts to ensure a healthy food supply. One generous donor to Sonoma County included a comment with their donation: To honor the heroic efforts of the Food Gardening Specialists in pulling off the Harvest for the Hungry plant sale.

Keep the good news flowing and enjoy your May Day weekend. Before we know it, it will be Cinco de Mayo.

Whether you observed Easter or Passover, were preparing for Ramadan to start in 10 days or celebrated the time off, I hope everyone had a pleasant weekend. For those in Modoc County, I hope you enjoyed the Easter Bunny Wave. The weather was perfect for it. I love the creativity by the 4-H members to take the bunny parade to the homes of the residents! So much easier than having to go to the parade. The 4-Hers in San Benito County did something special to reach out to emergency workers and people who may be feeling sick or lonely. How thoughtful!

Last week, President Napolitano joined the President's Advisory Commission (PAC) meeting from her dining room table, clearly not her usual mode of work. During the meeting, Secretary Karen Ross shared current challenges related to food distribution, including travel restrictions for seasonal labor necessary for harvest. The more significant issue may be the impact on farmers of closed restaurants and schools, resulting in food produced with no place to go. Every day I look to make sure the milk truck comes to the dairy across the street. So far, so good.

During the PAC meeting, we had some discussion about COVID-19, itself, including the positive test in Nadia, a 4-year-old female Malayan tiger at the Bronx Zoo. According to the Wildlife Conservation Society's Bronx Zoo, Nadia, her sister Azul, two Amur tigers, and three African lions developed a dry cough. It seems only Nadia tested positive. Did you know that at one point, my dream job was to be the Chief Veterinarian at the Bronx Zoo? At the time, I was in 4^th grade and had read about Emil Dolensek, who was at the time the Chief Veterinarian at the Bronx Zoo and the subject of the book, Doctor in the Zoo. The Bronx Zoo was my favorite place to visit. While I didn't pursue that career choice, it was a promising deterrent from my earlier plans. On the first day of kindergarten, when we each introduced ourselves and indicated our intended career path, I proclaimed my intentions of becoming a professional pickpocket. Alas, plans change.

On Friday, I had a chance to listen to Thursday's eXtension Social Café, featuring Brook and Sarah from the UC California Naturalist program and hosted by Rose Hayden-Smith. Rose will feature the UC California Naturalist program in the eFieldbook she is creating for eXtension as an outstanding example of social media use in #scicomm. I was really pleased to learn how Sarah ties in academic content from other UC ANR programs in her story posts. While not so fond of the idea of taking quizzes, I like the inclusion of the interaction and the fact that I can opt out of that part. Excellent work, Brook and Sarah!

Earlier in the week, I received an email from a colleague in North Carolina sharing that she had just read a Fast Company article that called out the UC Master Gardener program. Congratulations to Missy and the team! What an excellent recognition for their work and the program.

Speaking of gardening, it sounds like the last-minute change to the Contra Costa County plant sale is having some success. Lorna has shared some positive feedback from some of the donors who have purchased starter plants. Hopefully, many of the UC ANR staff can take advantage of the Staff Assembly's GROWS program. What a great idea!

I hope to see everyone at the Town Hall later this week!