While the gathering restrictions associated with COVID-19 may have put a damper on face to face Cooperative Extension programming, the staff in Currituck has been hard at work developing innovative ways to share educational information. Below is a review of the resources created, where you can find them, and a little preview of what is to come!

Live from Currituck Extension

Live from Currituck Extension began streaming daily on March 23rd, for about a half-hour from 11:30 a.m. to noon. This series focuses on our four areas of expertise: agriculture, family and consumer science, youth development (4-H), and community development. Material is relevant for both youth and adults, and includes question and answer sessions, made possible with YouTube’s chat function. Programming has been reduced to once weekly on Wednesdays. You can find the playlist of all of our live broadcasts at: https://go.ncsu.edu/curritucklive.

Take Care of Yourself Challenge

This virtual challenge highlighted all of the things that keep us healthy and happy. While the challenge itself has ended, you can still access the educational videos and download the printable resources. This 5-week challenge focused on five topics - making time for yourself, exercising, sleeping, gratitude, and a healthy diet. You can find the videos and links here: https://go.ncsu.edu/curritucktcoy.

This Week in the Garden

This series followed a garden from planning and planting through harvest with weekly updates. Each post contained a short video update of the garden and a related article. Throughout the series, we had occasional giveaways of gardening supplies, question and answer sessions with our subscribers, and troubleshooting for when things inevitably didn’t go right. You can review all twenty-two videos here: https://go.ncsu.edu/currituckinthegarden.

Lawns and Landscapes

Because spring and summer are traditionally the times we receive a high volume of gardening and landscaping calls, we’ve tried to anticipate some of your questions and produce short videos to help. You can view the entire catalog of these videos here: https://go.ncsu.edu/lawnsandlandscapes.

Youth Programming

Youth programming has been a bit more restricted but no less available to those willing to register. Our traditional presentation and public speaking contests went virtual this year for the first time ever. Eight youth from Currituck County competed on the district level and six went on to compete against participants from across the state. Our electric workshops also went virtual, complete with free project kits and weekly instructional videos for youth. Further, our annual poultry show is underway and the competition will be held virtually. More information about 4-H opportunities can be found on our website at http://currituck.ces.ncsu.edu.

Educational Articles

Staff have been producing a number of educational articles. You can monitor our website to stay up to date in real time or subscribe to our social media outlets (@CurrituckCES). To review those articles produced during the pandemic, please visit: https://go.ncsu.edu/currituckarticles.

Upcoming Opportunities

We are excited about the upcoming opportunities we have planned in spite of any programmatic restrictions. For a complete picture of all that we have upcoming, please visit our website at http://currituck.ces.ncsu.edu. Please also take the opportunity to read further in this publication about the upcoming virtual Fall Family Fun: A Virtual Fair Experience that we have planned. To register for this event please visit: https://currituckfallfair.eventbrite.com.

Please be sure to check our website (currituck.ces.ncsu.edu) often, subscribe to our YouTube channel (@CurrituckCES) and follow us on Facebook and Instagram for online programming. For more information regarding Extension programming in Currituck County, contact 252-232-2262 or Cameron_Lowe@ncsu.edu.