Saint Mary's County

We'd like to introduce you to a remarkable office located in the heart of St. Mary's County, where you can obtain useful, practical, up-to-date information on many subjects. It's called St. Mary's County Cooperative Extension Office, and it acts as a county-wide educational system. It's sponsored jointly by the University of Maryland, St. Mary's County Government, and the U. S. Department of Agriculture; and has access to many of the University of Maryland's resources.

When people ask for help, Extension personnel respond in many ways. Crucial to the Extension informal education system, staff teach in settings far more diverse than the traditional classroom. You'll find they deliver valuable assistance by just naming a few below:

• Responding to public inquiries
• Making on-site farm visits
• Sponsoring public meetings, tours, demonstrations, and expos/fairs
• Conducting workshops, classes, etc.
• Publishing newsletters and writing newspaper columns
• Distributing accurate technical publications with solutions to specific problems
• Providing 4-H youth development opportunities

( Ben Beale, Extension Educator/Liat Mackey, Extension Educator/Co-Directors, 2006)

Our office services families with home horticulture and a Master Gardener volunteer program, diet, nutrition, parenting skills, consumer education, and food safety education. We serve our youth with 4-H clubs, school enrichment, healthy lifestyles, camping, leadership development, and our farmers, landscapers, and nursery enterprises facts about raising crops and livestock, protecting the environment, animal and crop diagnostics, marketing farm products, farm and business management, pest management, and alternative agriculture.