Making Impacts Globally and Locally
WSU Extension serves the residents of Washington State by creating and delivering targeted research-based knowledge and education. It’s a mission the organization and its dedicated specialists have refined over the past century. Part of that process is communicating results.
These reports provide accounts of how our programs empower participants to better their lives. We hope the reports inspire you to join at least one of our courses or events, share your story, and provide feedback. Your involvement will help us improve our responsiveness and reach more individuals.
Community & Economic Development
- Establishing a local Economic Development Center (EDC), Ferry County Sunrise, to build local capacity in programs and service.
- Ongoing development of Ferry County grant program, workshops, and reporting system.
- Supporting County leaders and elected officials with tribal relations and planning impacting community and economic development.
- Quad County (Ferry, Okanogan, Pende Oreille, and Stevens) research on food systems and economic resilience resulting in expanded funding for Ferry County Sunrise, a local economic development center.
- Supporting the North Eastern Washington Commissioners (NEWC) with community and economic development best-practices in food systems, tribal and rural recovery and resilience, local investment networks, technology and broadband, and policy development impacting rural communities, farms, or ranches.
- During the wildfire recovery, WSU Ferry County assisted with an agency workshop on federal assistance, statewide pilot project on wildfire recovery, and WSU Ferry County also coordinated more than $30,000 worth of hay deliveries for affected farmers and ranchers.
- Production of high definition “county profile” video for use in main street promotions, countywide tourism, and small business recruitment.
- Video production of: community narratives and historical storytelling for community development, a grasshopper workshop in collaboration with the USDA, and water quality and grazing workshop in collaboration with Kittitas County to name a few.
- Serving more than 500 people and 20 small businesses with entrepreneurial and small business workshops on access to capital, marketing, social media, and analytics leading to job creation and changes in the economic landscape.
- Collaboration with Kinross, WA Department of Commerce, Tri-County Economic Development District, and Republic Chamber of Commerce to assist the gold mine in their social exit strategy.
- Supporting “Lunches from Lunches” (Republic Schools greenhouse project with Casey Harris) to assist with business plan development and economics of operating a small garden to provide food to the school cafeteria, while also providing workshops on the economics of food systems and food waste.
Master Gardener Program
- Establishing education programs leading to increased accessibility of hoop houses and greenhouses in support of food access, food safety, and food security.
- Increased Master Garderner participation and program growth leading to seed exchange, hoop house education, and cultivation videos to improve innovation with technology and learning.
- Supporting “Lunches from Lunches” (Republic Schools greenhouse project with Casey Harris) to provide public workshops on composting, planting, and maintaining small gardens.
- More than 300 points of contact annually from 2015 to Present with clients to support small garden and horticulture inquiries, as well as pest identification.
- Annual garden tour to showcase quality gardens throughout Ferry County.
4-H Clubs, Projects, and Grants
- Ferry County has one of the most active shooting sports programs in the State and one of the only programs with a shooting sports trailer.
- Ferry County remains as having one of the State’s highest 4-H enrollments per capita at more than 4% of the County population. We have more than 135 4-H volunteer leaders with documented value of $27.04 / hour, and statewide our volunteer leaders are valued at $54 million.
- State and National TV media coverage with emergency market animal sale (reached as far as Oregon). Emergency market animal sale had a great turnout with bids exceeding the previous year. Market animal sales continue to rise, despite the declared state of emergency.
- Youth showcased robotics build at SpoCon (a regional SciFi and technology event where our Tech Wizards robotics 4-H youth presented and displayed their projects).
- 2015 District Teen Rally successfully concluded with youth from Spokane, Stevens, Ponde O’Reille, and Ferry counties. This is the first time it has been held in Ferry County in 11 years.
- 2015 was the first 4-H Leaders’ Council fundraiser which made more than $2,000. Other fundraisers planned for the future.
- 2014 to present demonstrates significant program growth due to increases with open enrollments, 4-H enrollments, and new leader volunteers.
- We continue to have day camp or overnight camp every summer. In 2015, we had both a day camp AND overnight camp for our youth.
- Increased Tech Wizards grant programming capacity and continued funding opportunities in 2016.
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