Gilmer County’s new Family and Consumer Sciences (FACS) Extension Agent arrives with a background in teaching, running a family business and involvement in the 4-H program.
Nancy Adams, who started working at the local UGA Extension Office in August, grew up in Hickory Flat, where her parents ran Mann’s Greenhouse, a nursery that specialized in decorative plants, hanging baskets and herbs.
Adams said she ran the business herself until it closed in 2007. She was later an agriculture teacher for 10 years and worked as a 4-H program assistant.
“I was heavily involved with 4-H in Cherokee County. I always knew, at some point, I would work in extension,” Adams said. “I was raised in my parents’ greenhouse business. Back in the day, our local agriculture extension agent was always around and was like a (member) of our family.”
The FACS arm of the University of Georgia (UGA) Extension program covers a wide umbrella of information centered around the help areas of food, home, family, textiles, health and money. That includes budgeting and finances, youth development and food preservation and safety, among other focus areas, noted Adams.
“I’m working to make sure everybody knows that we’re here and where we fit into different parts of our community,” she said. “Extension is three-parted with agriculture, 4-H and FACS. Not every county has all three program agents in their county, but they do have access to all three sets of research is some form. We are UGA faculty, so our specialists do the research, and we take that research out to our communities.”
Although some items under the FACS umbrella are not as commonplace as they used to be, they are still things we need to know like how to preserve food, eat nutritionally, budget and balance a checkbook, Adams noted.
“Some of these things, we’ve gotten away from in school and in general,” she said. “When my parents were in school, they had a home economics class where you learned things like how to cook and sew, but that’s not so much in existence anymore. There are teachers who are super creative and work those life skills in where they can. But, in general, there’s not a life skills class anymore.”
Adams hopes to continue some of the extension office’s live educational programming and classes, which were on hold for much of the pandemic. She’s working with Faith, Hope and Charity Recycle Store to provide budgeting and life skill-type classes there. She also hopes to be able to work in the local school system at some point.
Adams is happy to be involved with a new literacy-boosting campaign in Gilmer’s schools. Following school closings and remote learning during the pandemic, the reading skills of many younger children have suffered, she noted.
“Having been a teacher, I recognize that this is happening,” Adams said. “The younger kids are falling further and further behind. Children took a big dip in just how to go to school (during the pandemic), so we’ve got to reteach them how to go to school.”
Adams also hopes to work with the extension office-sponsored Master Gardeners to bring programming to the county’s new Boys and Girls Club. “I’d like to do some programs with all three (age) levels,” she said.
Adams has been coming to Gilmer County as a visitor since she was a kid. She’s glad to now be working in the county where her family has long traveled to pick apples and enjoy the fall scenery.
“It reminds me here of my hometown when I was younger. We’ve had some growth that’s changed the way Cherokee County looks, but the small-town feel is what I was raised around,” she said.
An apple recipe contest, which is held in conjunction with each year’s Apple Festival, is also under the FACS umbrella. Entrants submit their best apple recipes to the extension office, and finalists who are selected will bring their prepared dishes to the festival for judging the morning of Saturday, Oct. 8.
“We’re looking for snacks, salads, desserts — you name it. If you can use apples in it and make them the star, it sounds good to me,” Adams said.
There will be categories for both youth and adult entrants in this year’s contest, and winners will be chosen in both divisions.
“I’m all about any time you can give an opportunity for youth to do something cool, you should let them,” Adams said.
The extension office is a place for information to be gathered and dispensed, so local residents are welcome to call or stop by the office at 1123 Progress Road, noted Adams, who will also be writing an extension column for the Times-Courier.
“We’re a one-stop shop for lots of information you might pick up, but we also have lots of programs available for youth in fourth grade and up,” she said.
“We would love to have folks call us and tell us what they want to do, and we’ll point them in the right direction for the right type of programming.”