The Extension task force, one of 10 task different task forces implemented as NC State’s response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, has been working to ensure that reopening campus goes as safely and smoothly as possible. Unlike other campus operations which shut down in mid-March, the Extension programs, for the most part, continued normal operations, according to Rich Bonanno, the associate dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the director of NC State Extension Service.
The extension education program functions to apply the knowledge obtained from research, largely through the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences to educate the public in topics related to food safety and sanitation, general nutrition, sustainability and more. Although it is mostly housed in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, there are also programs within the College of Engineering and even the College of Design.
“All of our faculty that had Extension as part of their appointment continued to work with farmers, continued to work with agents, continued to work with youth, continued to work with the public and help nutrition programs,” Bonanno said.
The Extension programs, which are located in all 100 counties in North Carolina plus the Cherokee Nation, have worked to maximize safety to ensure the continuation of much-needed services. Some of these services include providing school lunches to children or visiting farmers who were experiencing problems with a certain crop.
“We converted all of our programming away from in person or face to face to virtual programming, and we did that with everything from youth livestock shows to dealing with the public and teaching them how to cook healthier, more nutritious meals,” Bonanno said. “The needs of the public are still there, and we continue to serve those needs in any way we can, even with all the constraints and restrictions that have been imposed upon us.”
At the county level, extension agents provided direct community aid and disaster relief to alleviate some of the negative impacts of COVID-19 on local families, including phone banking, running food banks and providing free lunches to children from low-income families.
“Many of those were very much directed by the counties,” Bonanno said. “They may involve phone banks to help the public answer questions. They also, in many cases, involved the manning of food banks.”
As of June 23, almost all of the county Extension offices are open again. Some are offering limited walk-in services to the public, such as distributing literature or supplies to people, while others are open only for employees. Of the counties that are open, 26 are doing in-person services.
“We’ve given each county the flexibility to ramp up at their own speed, and that’s largely based on any particular constraints that the county might have in place still,” Bonanno said.
Although many of the Extension programs are geared toward youth, such as the 4-H club, Bonanno explained that as of now, in-person programming has been limited to adults only to ensure that participants are able to fully understand and follow social distancing guidelines. However, once the state begins phase 3 of the reopening process, Bonanno and his team plan to restart in-person programming for 11-18-year-olds.
Currently, the task force is not meeting formally, although Bonanno and his colleagues have compiled a task force report, which they are constantly updating. This report includes information from counties across the state as they navigate the reopening process.
“Pretty much on the Extension side, we get a very clear path of where we’re going; it’s just the question of waiting for certain phases and implementing things,” Bonanno said.
