Upcoming programs
- From Food To Flowers: Everything Local | January 17-19, 2024 Crowne Plaza, Springfield, IL. Information and registration now open!
- 2024 Southwestern Illinois Commercial Tree Fruit School | Tuesday, February 6 at Knights of Columbus Hall 19899 Illinois River Road, Hardin, IL 62047. For more information or to pre-register visit go.illinois.edu/TreeFruitSchool or contact Ken Johnson at kjohnso@illinois.edu or 217-243-7424.
- 2024 Southern Illinois Fruit and Vegetable School | Wednesday, February 7 at Doubletree Meeting & Event Center 222 Potomac Boulevard, Mt. Vernon, IL 62864. For more information or to pre-register visit go.illinois.edu/FruitVegetableSchool24 or contact Chris Lueking at lueking@illinois.edu or (618) 548-1446.
- 2024 Stateline Fruit and Vegetable Growers Conference | Save the date! Monday, February 19, 2024 at NIU Rockford, IL. More information to come.
Less seriously
As this will be the last issue of the year, we wanted to take the opportunity to wish everyone a joyous holiday season!
Specialty growers may only make up a small portion of the total number of farmers within our region but you are a mighty group, working diligently everyday to supply our communities with fresh fruits and vegetables to sustain our bodies and minds. Whether your touchpoint with Extension is through this newsletter, webinars, videos, emails, phone calls, or in-person conversations on your farm or around your kitchen table, know that we as extension professionals appreciate you and value our connections.
The Extension Worker’s Creed written 101 years ago still rings true today as we try our best to extend knowledge that will help to change lives.
The Extension Worker's Creed
"I believe in the people and their hopes their aspirations and their faith and their right to make their own plans and arrive at their own decisions and their ability and power to enlarge their lives and plan for the happiness of those they love.
I believe the education, of which Extension is an essential part, is basic in stimulating individual initiative self-determination and leadership that these are the keys to democracy and that people, when given facts they understand, will act not only in their self-interest but also in the interest of society.
I believe that education is a lifelong process and the greatest university is the home that my success as a teacher is proportional to those qualities of mind and spirit that give me welcome entrance into the homes of the families that I serve.
I believe in intellectual freedom to search for and present the truth without bias and with courteous tolerance to the views of others. I believe that Extension is a link between the people and the ever-changing discoveries in the laboratories.
I believe in the public institutions, of which I am part of. I believe in my own work and in the opportunity I have to make my life useful to humanity.
Because I believe these things, I am an extension professional.
The creed was written by W.A. Lloyd, founder of Epsilon Sigma Phi, an honorary Extension professional association, as a New year's greeting to county ag agents in 1922. North Carolina State University.