February 13, 2024
Shout Out: Rebecca McFarland
This week the Shout Out is from Jaime Menon, Community Vitality State Program Leader; and is sent for Rebecca McFarland, Frontier Extension District Director. Jaime writes:
"In May of 2023, the city of Melvern KS, partnered with their local Melvern Pride (a member of the Kansas Community Empowerment (KCE) Program) to make a big step toward community change – which was to administer a community survey.
Melvern Pride engaged KCE Staff to create a survey (which had a 33% return rate – WOW!), then invited KCE staff to read out the results and facilitate a community discussion around the important issues revealed in the survey. KCE Staff extended an invitation to Frontier Extension District Director, Rebecca McFarland, as well as the Kansas Department of Commerce (Liz Heron) to serve as zone facilitators and immediate resource connections.
Over 50 community members broke into working groups to address seven areas of interest in that initial meeting. Nearly a year later, the groups are meeting regularly to continue to forge the path to community change…and one of their most important champions has been Rebecca. Rebecca has stayed connected with Melvern on a continuous basis, providing resources to address childcare and connections to businesses support and development, and promoting local District offerings to the community of Melvern.
Thank you to Rebecca, for your phenomenal support to Kansas communities!"
Rebecca, thanks for all you do for the people of Kansas, our colleagues and K-State Research and Extension.
If you know of a colleague or team of colleagues who deserve recognition for a job well done, why not nominate them for a Shout Out. Simply send their name(s) and the reason for the Shout Out to ksreshoutout@ksu.edu.
Shout Out submissions are published in the order they are received.