By Andrew Edwards
Staff Writer
The Autauga County Extension Office, part of the Alabama Cooperative Extension Office and in partner with Auburn University and Alabama A&M, offers a plethora of resources to its’ surrounding communities – providing research-based educational programs in agriculture; forestry, wildlife, and natural resources; family and consumer sciences; economic and community development; 4-H and youth development; and urban affairs.
But on March 15th, 2020, all of that came to a crashing halt as the coronavirus pandemic left many wondering what was next.
“We quickly shut down our building and actually didn’t reopen until July,” said Darrue Sharpe, Autauga County Coordinator for ACES. “It was a pretty scary time, and lot of us here at the office didn’t know what was going to happen next.”
Luckily, ACES acted quickly and started to move most of their in-person events online to the Zoom virtual platform.
“At first it took some getting used to but I think a lot of our employees, and likewise, clients, really enjoyed the zoom setting. Knowing how to use that type of technology will really help us in the long run,” Sharpe said.
One of the classes that ACES typically holds in person is their ‘Food Safety Canning Program’, and according to Sharpe, it usually maxes out at approximately 10-15 participants.
With the zoom mechanic in play this past year, over 500 people took part in the class.
“It’s been kind of a blessing in disguise. While it has been very stressful and different, we feel the changes that COVID forced us to make has certainly made us more equipped for the future,” Sharpe said.
Facebook has also been a huge part of ACES success during the pandemic, as they have been having daily yoga sessions for people to participate in.
“One of the big components of our extension office is to promote wellness to the people in our surrounding communities. Our yoga classes and cooking demonstrations over Facebook live have really been beneficial to not only local residents, but to anyone, anywhere, who wants to watch,” Sharpe said.
But it wasn’t always an easy path these past twelve months. In fact, ACES had to cancel their Farm-City Week this past November – their biggest event of the year.
On top of that, the limited chances that the extension office had to hold in-person event had to have extremely limited capacity.
“We have a huge annual event, our calf sale, that we hold every August. We had to bring those numbers down from 150 people to 50. We hold a steak dinner there that everyone seems to enjoy greatly,” Sharpe said.
But now things are starting to look up again, and as vaccines begin to roll out more and more, Sharpe is optimistic that things will not only go back to how they used to be – but that they’ll be better.
“All in all our events have been cleared to have 100 people now, and as the next couple of months progress, we’re optimistic that we will be back at full-capacity,” Sharpe said. “What’s even better is that once we go back to in-person events, we plan on using the zoom platform as well to reach the most amount of people possible”.
Currently, ACES is in the middle of their wildly popular Master Gardner Program. But there is an extensive list of program choices that you can choose to participate in throughout the year – most free of charge.
For those wanting to know more about the program opportunities that the Autauga County Extension Office offers, call them at (334) 361-7273 or look at their website: https://www.aces.edu/
