Lebanon County’s extension office benefits local residents in many ways

The phrase “We are Penn State!” heralds the school and celebrates the university’s sports programs, but maybe the local version should be “We are Lebanon County!”

A rebranding of the phrase in the Lebanon Valley seems appropriate once one understands the breadth and depth of the impact that Lebanon County’s Penn State Extension office has locally. 

From its 4-H programs to assisting farmers increase their yields to helping individuals and families make nutritious and healthy choices that improve the well-being of the community, Penn State Extension touches the lives of nearly every Lebanon County resident.

Last week, the extension team in Lebanon County appeared before the Lebanon County Commissioners at a workshop session to “nurture the collaborative and appreciative relationship between the Lebanon County Extension team and Lebanon County leadership,” according to Amy Bradford, the team’s client relationship manager.

“I’d like to take the opportunity for them to each give you a little bit of an update on the programming and the collaboration and partnerships that they have here in the county in order to make sure that we are reaching the residents as well as we can with the different kinds of products and programming and services that we can provide everyone here in the county and within the communities,” Bradford said. 

An information packet provided to LebTown revealed that extension personnel want to “strengthen communication by facilitating connections and maintaining open and an ongoing dialogue between the service and county officials; express their gratitude to the county for their ongoing support of extension programs; showcase the positive impact by highlighting the values and outcomes of programing, services and collaborative partnerships; and identify existing and emerging needs and other opportunities for engagement and programming.”

“Thank you for the openness and the communication that you’re allowing us to do so that we can show you the benefits of the investment that you’re making here within the county toward Penn State Extension,” Bradford said at the beginning of a nearly one-hour presentation. “We want you to see that we are a vital part of the community and can help with agriculture and all the other areas, 4-H, leadership, environmental stewardship, and also the food and human health aspects of the programming that we can provide in order to make your investment the most effective and efficient possible.”

Jamie Wolgemuth, Lebanon County administrator, said most counties provide some kind of unmandated financial support to their local county extension office. In 2025, Lebanon County’s share was $549,047, of which $92,000 was used to pay for leased office space at the ag center near the Lebanon Valley Expo Center in North Cornwall Township. 

The extension service was signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln in 1862 via the Morrill Act, which established the land-grant system to meet demand for agricultural/technical education in the U.S. That law was later supplemented by the Hatch Act of 1887 (ag research) and the Smith-Lever Act of 1914 (ag extension).

“We work within a unit structure, but within that there are 30 teams under each of those smaller number of units. There are 30 teams that we have within extension, and then within those there’s hundreds of programs,” Bradford told commissioners. “We have the advantage of being a part of the land-grant institution and being a part of Penn State and the College of Agriculture to gather information and utilize the research that’s being done across the state and educators that might be based in other parts of the commonwealth to use as resources here in the county.”

Penn State is ranked as a top 6% world-class university, buoyed by its $1.3 billion research enterprise, according to the information kit. Total college research expenditures were $131 million in fiscal year 2024. It was noted that extension members translate the research into real-world solutions, providing lifelong learning via research-based education and training for the agriculture industry and all Pennsylvanians. 

“The biggest mission today is just to communicate, to give you this update, but also to make sure that we’re meeting your needs and that we’re communicating what you need to make the decisions that are put in front of you and that you have all the information you need to make those (decisions),” Bradford added, before asking department leaders to give brief presentations about their work.

Penn State Extension’s primary units are 4-H Youth Development, Agronomy and Natural Resources, Animal Systems, Food, Families and Communities and Horticulture.

Educators Martha Gregory and Julie Weaver and program assistant Debbie Tice presented information concerning the county’s 4-H program. 

“Over the past year, we’ve been able to engage 2,350 young people in Lebanon County in our 4-H Youth Development Program, and that includes both our 4-H club program, our school enrichment program, summer program opportunities, and also our Ag Literacy Week programming,” Gregory said. “Those delivery modes all include various educational activities that are building skills for individuals and also the interpersonal skills that they need to get along and grow and make friends here in the community.”

Youth development reached 457 4-H club members, 833 4-H school enrichment members, 159 summer program members, 901 ag literacy week participants and trained just over 100 adult volunteers. There are 11 active 4-H clubs locally with over 18,000 youth learning hours logged with a dollar value estimate of $388,496. 

It was stated that the mission is to be a “positive youth development program” for area youth. 

“We hope that the positive skills and behaviors that they’re learning are going to be things that will build and make them positive contributors to society in the future,” Gregory said. “We cannot do our program without the volunteer support that we have. So we have 105 volunteers, an increase of 7% this year in our volunteer enrollment, and we’re always on the lookout for adults that care about kids and want to contribute and support their growth and development.”

Tice stated the 4-H animal program has a specific goal. 

“One of the things we like to say in raising any kind of animal project is that we are teaching kids responsibility and ethics through livestock programs,” Tice said. “The idea is that they’re going to grow up to be a farmer or whatever, and the idea is to teach them those life skills that they need for responsibility and getting up every day and doing a job.”

Weaver highlighted new 4-H programs, including an outreach in Lebanon city. 

“One of the exciting things that we did this year, we really are starting a concerted effort on reaching an under-reached, or perhaps not reached at all, audience in Lebanon city, specifically with some of our Hispanic population,” Weaver said. “So we started off that initiative with a day camp that we held with the Chestnut Street Community Center. We did start a partnership with Chestnut Street Community Center this year. So we had a day camp, and the campers that camped were from the population that we were trying to reach. That was just the beginning point of hopefully having a more concerted effort to reaching the youth within Lebanon city and also identifying some volunteers as well.”

Other programs to be highlighted included a poultry educational outreach initiative to adult Latino poultry workers, cooking classes that promote healthy living, master gardeners and their work to beautify local communities, water quality improvements throughout the local river basin, and crops outreach to enhance farmer yields during the growing season. 

One crop program outreach mentioned was the recent crops tour.

Read More: Crop yields expected to be average, prices flat for Lebanon County farmers

Other impacts of note were those conducted by the local office’s customer service team. Nearly 1,000 enquiries were received via telephone, mail and email, 1,056 customer visits were met, and 20 drinking water and 306 soil testing kits were distributed to customers.

Additionally, extension staff held numerous classroom educational programs and community events, including 360 cooking and food events, 143 master gardener sessions, 254 classroom 4-H learning opportunities, seven master watershed stewards, 24 agronomy sessions, and 33 miscellaneous for various outside groups.

“We have to make decisions about where we allocate the dollars, but, you know, you have to have good facilities, good programs, but at the core it’s good people. So thank you all for what you’re doing,” said commission chairman Mike Kuhn. “You make it easy to make a decision that this is a good investment for Lebanon County because we have a big return on your work.”