We did it! Yesterday, 281 donors gave $100,000 to UC ANR programs. THANK YOU to each and every generous donor! So many good things will come as a result of the support. I really would not have guessed we would have raised so much during Big Dig Day given that it was the first event of its kind for UC ANR. ‘New' can be good!

In other good news, David Haviland has been determined as the recipient of the Western Extension Directors' Award of Excellence for 2019. The award will be presented to David at the 2019 Western Region Joint Summer Meeting at Albuquerque, New Mexico. Awardees are asked to give a 5-7 minute overview of their program during an award lunch. This continues the streak for UC ANR as Jeff Mitchell, Dan Munk, and the team were recipients last year.

This week was the SI Leader meeting on Tuesday. We planned to summer road show a bit and talked about the new story pipeline. I'm excited to see more stories in it so that I have it as a resource to talk with stakeholders about all the great things we are doing! If you have a story to submit, you can find the link here under 'Telling Our Stories' (Knowledge Stream).

On Wednesday we had Program Council. The highlight was a presentation by Katie about the Master Food Preserver Program's new strategic plan. That program is an example of where UC ANR can really make a difference for some who have so little. The program is more than canning; it's about food safety and using preservation methods (drying, freezing) to make use of excess produce and make it available all year long.

Today the Vice President's Council met. Topics included the elements of a strategic plan (funding plan, staffing plan, vision and mission elements).  John Bailey and Sabrina Drill provided a close look at the funding plans for Hopland REC and the Cal Naturalist program, respectively. It was a busy day for Sabrina; she also led the presentation on citizen and community science in UC ANR. The UC Davis Center on this topic (Heidi and Ryan) were co-presenters. Other topics included the economics of the ability to accept credit cards at events throughout the state.

Tomorrow is the REC Directors call followed by the County Directors call. Then the Davis building is having their summer BBQ. Another week in the books. Almost 3 years ago, I would never have imagined how fast time would fly!