Sowing seeds of improved communities

Kimberley McGee

Friday, Feb. 22, 2002 | 3:34 a.m.

In the early 1900s government-funded cooperative education was used by farmers throughout the nation to better cultivate their crops.

Continuing education allowed farmers to learn how to squeeze the most out of land by bringing knowledge to the communities where it was most needed.

Today cooperative education continues to be used in Nevada, to cultivate strong communities and individuals.

The University of Nevada Cooperative Extension-Southern Area supplies classes, programs and information to the growing Southern Nevada population to strengthen the social, economic and environmental well-being of the community.

As the Las Vegas Valley has grown, more of its citizens need greater access to a variety of educational resources, Dixie Allsbrook, director of the UNCE-Southern Area, said.

"We give opportunities in education that people would otherwise not get," Allsbrook said. "We've always been here to educate the underserved communities. Not everybody knows what we do, though."

UNCE-Southern Area is the largest of four geographic areas of the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension. It has more than 80 staff and faculty members, who serve Clark, southern Nye and Lincoln counties.

UNCE-Southern Area offers more than 40 programs, including Chefs for Kids, which teaches elementary school students good nutrition, and Expanded Food and Nutrition Education, a program that counsels families on how to stretch their dollars and their food stamps.

The Cooperative Extension education also offers programs that reach back to its farming roots, such as water conservation and a community garden workshop.

One of the more popular workshops is the eight-week Master Gardner program. Southern Nevada residents can pay $50 to learn desert landscaping techniques from an experienced horticulturist.

"So many people move to Las Vegas and have no idea how to garden in the desert," Allsbrook said. "We have a telephone hotline that must get 1,000 calls a month from people asking gardening questions."

The list of programs continues to grow each year, Allsbrook said. One of the more recent additions is Project Magic, an alternative sentencing program for first-time juvenile offenders.

It's a life-skills program that teaches offenders how to deal with decision making and self-esteem issues by confronting their feelings and talking about them, Allsbrook said.

"They are learning how to survive in today's world in a different way than what they've been presented with in their life," Allsbrook said. "The biggest thing in decision making (is), how to deal with violence in the home and how to deal with arguments that take place everyday."

Cooperative Extension continues to look for volunteers and is always open to new program ideas, Allsbrook said.

"We find a problem in the community, we create a program and then we deliver what's needed," Allsbrook said. "We are looking to build independence for the individual and the community any way we can."

Blanca Guevara, an instructor with Cooperative Extension since 1991, teaches nutrition classes at Las Vegas community centers six days a week to low-income families, senior citizens and Spanish-speaking area residents.

"I feel like I do make a difference and I do see changes," Guevara said. "Sometimes very subtle changes, but they are there."

Female clients have returned to Guevara after a few nutrition classes to say that their husbands are happy with the new recipes they've learned, and can see an improvement in their children's appetites because of the variety of color and texture of the foods they've learned to include in their daily meals.

"We are adding to their quality of life," Guevara said.