February 2024 eNews

Aging and Medicare

It's essential to carefully review plan options during the annual enrollment period and consider any changes in your health, budget, or preferences when deciding whether to change your Medicare Advantage plan.

If you're already enrolled in a Medicare Advantage plan, you can switch to another Medicare Advantage plan or go back to Original Medicare (and, in some cases, add a standalone Part D prescription drug plan). Read More.

SNAP-Ed/EFNEP

Free Nutrition Classes

03/07/2024 - 04/11/2024

SNAP-Ed offers FREE nutrition education classes to help you make healthier choices. If you are eligible for or receiving SNAP, TANF, TEFAP, Head Start, SSI, WIC, or free/reduced lunches, these classes are for you!

SNAP-Ed is offering a 1-hour class on Thursdays for 6 weeks for adults in March. You’ll learn:

•        Easy, healthy recipes
•        Safe cooking techniques
•        How to get more for your buck at the grocery store
•        How to squeeze physical activity into your daily routine

Each class also features a recipe with a food demo and tasting.

Click here to sign up for this 6-week Create Better Health series starting Thursday, March 7 at the Sedgwick County Extension Office (7001 W 21^st St N, Wichita, KS 67205). You can also call us at 316-660-0119 to sign up. If you are unsure if you qualify, we encourage you to sign up anyway.

Horticulture

Preparing your landscape and garden for a changing climate is no easy feat. Learn from the best this month as Nobel Peace Prize winner, world-renowned speaker, and K-State Distinguished Professor of Soil Microbiology, Dr. Charles Rice, presents on “Gardening for a Changing Climate”. Learn how to adapt your garden’s plant selection, irrigation, and soil health in order to reinforce your garden against the weather extremes and drought conditions of the future. This month’s presentation will be live from Noon to 1pm on Wednesday, February 7, and will also be recorded and posted online. Register for upcoming webinars or find past recordings online Here.

Thank You Sedgwick County

Extension Master Gardener Volunteers

This past month we celebrated the many achievements and accomplishments of our Sedgwick County Extension Master Gardener Volunteers in 2023. This incredible group of 350 volunteers broke many previous records for our program. Check out some of their accomplishments below:

• Contributed over 25,460 volunteer hours (the most ever in program history!)
• Educated over 92,421 residents of Sedgwick County with gardening information (the most ever in program history!)
• Their volunteer service is the equivalent to 12.2 full time extension staff and a dollar value of over $809,628.00
• Their Plant A Row For The Hungry program collected over 6,267 pounds of fresh produce for the food insecure of our area
• Provided gardening presentations to 61 classrooms, across 23 schools
• Hosted 8 guided tours of the Sedgwick County Extension Arboretum, including the 13 new trees planted this past year
• Graduated 39 new Extension Master Gardener Volunteers from the training program

This is only the beginning of their great work! Check out the video to learn more about all of their great work in 2023 Here.

Thank you to our incredible volunteers! 

Interested in becoming a Sedgwick County Extension Master Gardener Volunteer? Click Here.

Interested in supporting the work of our Sedgwick County Extension Master Gardener Volunteers? Make a donation Here.

Local Food

Join us February 10^th for the Local Food Producer Workshop at Hutchinson Community College. Workshops will help local farmers and food businesses increase their ability to produce and sell high quality, safe and healthy food that benefits their local communities. The agenda for each workshop includes updates on the Senior Farmers Market Nutrition program, and the Double Up Food Bucks program – which help senior citizens and low-income families access fresh produce in the summer months; and a discussion on regulations associated with selling local meat, poultry, eggs, and produce. Other topics include marketing and business development; vegetable production; extending the season; and considerations when selling value-added foods, like jams and salsas.

Cost: $20 through Feb. 2nd, $25 after Feb. 2nd

Register now Here

See Facebook Event Here

Community Vitality

Register Here

Questions?  Contact Nancy Daniels at nkdaniels@ksu.edu

Agriculture

Family Life

Creating Space for the Second Birth

Communication between adolescents and parents is one of the most difficult things in the realm of family relationships. Author Amparo Moreno in her book “La Adolescencia”, calls this stage “The period of a second birth”, as a new expression on the transition period from child to young adult; the different modifications given in the body structure, thinking, identity, and the way of interacting with family and society. Sometimes, parents don’t know how to communicate with their children because they are no longer the young child that they knew. Click Here for some ideas from the University of Alabama Extension to apply in 2024. For Spanish Click Here.

4-H and Youth Development

Youth Participate in Wheat Science Program

Youth across Sedgwick County have been participating in our Wheat Science program to celebrate Kansas Day and learn more about Kansas' #1 crop--wheat. This program allows 3rd and 4th graders to mix, measure, knead, and bake their own loaf of whole wheat bread. Our 4-H extension staff members have been visiting schools from Maize to Goddard to Wichita and have even worked with some homeschool groups to provide kits to interested parents. In addition to bread making, we also share about how wheat is grown, harvested, and milled in their local communities and how much work goes into making a loaf of bread. Contact the 4-H Department to find out more about offering wheat science to your students next year!

Health and Nutrition

Know Your Radon Risks

Did you know that 1 in 4 Kansas homes test high for radon? Radon is a natural, tasteless, odorless, colorless, radioactive gas produced from the decay of uranium found in nearly all soils. This gas moves from the ground under and around your home through cracks and other holes in the foundation. Long-term radon exposure is the leading cause of lung cancer among nonsmokers so your home needs to be routinely tested.

To learn more about radon exposure and testing, join us on February 29^th from 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm at the Security 1^st Title Conference Center located at 170 W. Dewey, Wichita, KS 67202 to hear from Laura Wallace at the Kansas Radon Program at K-State. The first 25 participants will receive a FREE radon test kit upon pre-registration.

The program is FREE, but you must register to attend. Please Click Here or call 316.660.0143 to register.

K-State News

K-State 105 brings NetWork Kansas, K-State Research and Extension together to build up statewide youth entrepreneurship program

Two K-State 105 partners — NetWork Kansas and K-State Research and Extension — are collaborating to bring the Kansas Entrepreneurship Challenge to new heights as one of the leading youth entrepreneurship competitions in the state of Kansas.

The Kansas Entrepreneurship Challenge represents the culmination of a sequence of community-based entrepreneurship competitions for students in grades 6-12, known as the Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge, or YEC, series.

NetWork Kansas, a statewide entrepreneurial organization, coordinates the YEC series and KEC in partnership with the Center for the Advancement of Entrepreneurship in the K-State College of Business Administration. The 2023-24 competition year marks the 11th annual YEC season. K-State Research and Extension is getting involved as program partner.

"Through 4-H, K-State has a long history of providing high-quality positive youth development programming in all 105 Kansas counties," said Sarah Maass, program director for 4-H youth development. "The Kansas Entrepreneurship Challenge provides a unique educational opportunity to empower young people, which is a key element of the 4-H mission."

Learn more about the Kansas Entrepreneurship Challenge. 

K-State Partners

Environmental Justice, or EJ, is the idea that every person, regardless of their race, skin color, background or income, deserves to live in an environment that doesn't harm their health. It's also about making sure that everyone gets a fair chance to be involved in decisions that affect the health of our environment. To spread awareness about this important issue, Kansas State University’s Pollution Prevention Institute, or PPI, will host an event from 5-7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 27, at the Evergreen Branch Library in Wichita, Kansas. The event will feature speakers from Spirit AeroSystems and the Heartland Environmental Justice Center, and light refreshments will be served. For more details about this event or to RSVP, please visit our website Here. 

The Sedgwick County event will be similar to an event hosted last November in Wyandotte County. The November event brought together community members, government officials and representatives from various companies to discuss EJ. With insightful presentations from Darling Ingredients and the Heartland Environmental Justice Center, attendees had the opportunity to express their views and concerns about EJ challenges in their community.

Get Involved!

K-State Research and Extension — Sedgwick County exists to serve the people of south central Kansas. Our mission thrives because of community support. We offer many opportunities for volunteers to offer their time and skills, from gardening to youth development to programming support.

Learn more about ways to support our programming and the needs of the community. 

Looking for an

event space?

Kansas State University Agricultural Experiment Station and Cooperative Extension Service

K-State Research and Extension is an equal opportunity provider and employer.