ave you heard the saying, “When life hands you lemons, make lemonade”? As I was contemplating the events of this past month and our responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, it occurred to me that perhaps we’ve been managing the difficult situation by “making lemonade”. Most everything in our normal routines has changed, but we have adapted by creating offices in our homes and forwarding our office phones to our cell phones. We’ve learned to connect with our co-workers and our public in new ways, updating our skills with familiar technology and learning to use new technologies as well. Working as a team both locally and state-wide, KSRE has been figuring out how to serve our public in new yet relevant ways.
Walk Kansas, our eight week healthy living challenge was one program we were able to just tweak some and carry on pretty much as usual. Remaining physically active during the pandemic has been vital to keeping physically and mentally healthy and we not only promote activity, but we encourage healthy eating and stress reduction through our weekly newsletters and emails to participants. We’ve also kept connected on our Walk Kansas Facebook page where people have posted photos and comments about their experiences on the trail, etc. Over 300 people in our District have registered for Walk Kansas this year.
“Diabetes: You Are In Control” is the title of a 2021 K-State FCS Lesson that I am involved in writing as part of the Dining with Diabetes State Leadership Team. The fact sheet, leader’s guide, and evaluation tool are now at the publisher and will be completed soon. We are working on a presentation that we will share virtually on June 8, 2020 as we roll out this lesson to Family and Consumer Sciences Agents all over Kansas. This lesson has been chosen by Family and Community Education (FCE) units as one of their state lessons for the year 2021 as well.
Our State Dining with Diabetes team has also been involved in numerous conversations by Zoom and in Microsoft Teams regarding working with K-State Global Campus to set up Dining with Diabetes so it can be shared as a series of online classes. Once online classes are completed, the reach of this significant, research-based information will be greatly expanded, and it will pave the way for more such classes from Extension in the future.
Part of adapting to our new routine is increasing out digital presence. I have used Zoom to prepare a presentation on “The Mediterranean Diet” to be shared within the next week or so. This is a program I had scheduled for several face-to-face presentations. Also, I have been contributing content for extra news columns, radio spots, video spots, social media spots and the FCS newsletter which is being produced weekly during this time.
Turning lemons into lemonade? Why not!
H
FOOD PLANNING DURING A PANDEMIC