Program Impacts of Southern Nye County

Personal & Family Development: 4-H Community Groups

Helping just one child stay healthy and be successful in school can save well over $20,000 in estimated educational, medical and incarceration costs. We continue offering quality programs with new, innovative delivery methods.

• 152 youth participated in 4-H educational programming
• 94 group enrollments
• 152-member enrollment in clubs facilitated by 20 volunteer leaders Highlighted Clubs

 Highlighted Clubs

• Amargosa
  • Craft bag projects were provided to the Library for youth to assemble with instructions
  • Summer day camp project materials provided
  • Needs for volunteers and club programming were assessed in FY23-24 and clubs are in-progress in FY24-25 
• April Spring Fling
  • For all 4-H club and non-club members, held in the annex, huge success with 52 youth attending, to enjoy games, food, music, dancing, and learning more about 4-H
• Cloverbuds
  • The youngest group of 4-H’ers (age 5-8) enjoy a wide range of separate and shared activities, from Mindfulness to STEAM, often with Community Club members.
• Community Club
  • Run business meetings and offer support for all other 4-H clubs; host monthly speakers at club meetings
  • Demonstrate preferred good leadership skills
  • Donated 1500 4-H branded items for Back to School supply drive
  • Help local worthy causes (Senior Center/VFW/Avery’s Bicycles) during December holiday season
  • Teen Game Night with board games fun
  • Murder Mystery with costumes and play acting
• Dog Den (age 9-19)
  • Club split into beginners and advanced offers deeper focus
    Owners and dogs learn on and off leash disciplines including obedience, agility, rally commands, showmanship and improved everyday situations
    Many members earned their first certificate in K-9 good citizenship and are working on achieving their second
• FIRST LEGO League Explore (age 6-10)
  • Focus on fundamentals of engineering and design, whilst learning to code and create unique solutions, through hands-on STEM explorations
• FIRST Tech Challenge Awkward Silence Competitive Robotics Team #12991 (age 15-19) meet regularly with schedule of presentations including:
  • MeetPlays attended in Las Vegas provide opportunities for local outreach and engagement with other Southern area FTC teams
  • Demonstration of the program at Pahrump Art Walk
  • Participated at the Science and Tech Expo in Las Vegas to showcase equipment and operating skills
  • Summer camp served 4-H and non-4-H youth (9-13) in Southern Nye Co with participants from Pahrump and Beatty
  • Open House held for recruitment purposes
• Kids in the Garden
  • Tend their garden on site with guidance from club leader as they learn about growing vegetables, herbs, and flowers. Garden related crafts are also enjoyed indoors
• Livestock
  • Teaches safe and healthy care and upkeep of livestock with hands-on learning on variety of animals including goats, dairy cow, swine, turkeys, ducks, pigeons, doves and rabbits
  • Built their own obstacle course on site, utilized during goat showmanship practice
  • Club hold their own Livestock Shows where members enjoy wearing their 4-H outfits
  • Horse club met at local arena for hands-on learning, with horse ownership not necessary
• Minecraft
  • Members meet regularly to work as a team, building a club community on their server
• Sewing
  • Member creations exhibited at Fall Festival, winning ribbons in Arts and Craft section
  • Members develop skills working through 4-H Project Books, with new machines
• Word Play Café Creative Writing
  • Members meet weekly to work on individual projects, with published author as leader
  • Club’s Story Walk in the Extension Demonstration Garden continues to be enjoyed by visitors
  • Summer camp week held in July focusing on one intensive week of learning the writing/author process

EXTENSION OFFICE, PAHRUMP 

• Office is open for walk-in services Monday through Friday, 9am – 3pm.
• Demonstration Garden, maintained by volunteers, is open dawn to dusk for public to visit. Guided tours by volunteers/staff when available. Horticulture The Extension Horticulture program is very important to the residents of Southern Nye County, that have come to rely on the education and expertise provided by their local help desk.

Trained Master Gardener staff and volunteers distribute research-based Extension Publications to advise homeowners on best gardening practices for the unique Mojave Desert climate in Pahrump.

•  18 Pahrump Master Gardeners volunteered 3764 hours which reflects a financial contribution to the community, valued at $119,695.20 for FY23-24 ($31.80 volunteer hourly rate per Independent Sector)
• Pahrump Farmers’ Market is hosted and managed by Pahrump Master Gardeners.
  • Offered year round, with 1332 vendor booths participating
  • Attended by estimate 16,776 visitors including local area residents
  • Vendors holding Producer Certificates and/or Cottage Food registration, may sell fresh seasonal home-grown produce, eggs, honey, eligible cottage foods. Home-made items, soaps, arts and handicrafts permitted. No third-party sales. 
  • Senior Farmer’s Market Nutrition Vouchers accepted
  • Located in parking lot of Tractor Supply, Pahrump
• Pahrump Master Gardeners hosted the Food & Horticulture Exhibits at Pahrump Fall Festival 2023, with 18 volunteers covering 195 hours over 7 days, whilst facilitating intake and judging of 114 qualifying entries and welcoming 1455 public visitors to the Exhibit room. Volunteers were on hand to answer gardening questions, with free University publications available. 
• Other Community Events with Pahrump Master Gardeners in person outreach participation include
• Earth Day at Bob Ruud Community Center 
• Rotary Spooky Eye Trunk or Treat 
• July 4 Parade at Calvada Eye, with pumpkin seed giveaway
• Pahrump Valley Little League Opening Day pumpkin seed handout 
• Giant Pumpkin Contest with top three ribbon winning pumpkins weighing 70lbs, 44lbs and 40lbs 
• Spring Mountain Apartments Garden Club enabled members to grow their own healthy meals, a partnership with Nye Community Coalition SNAP-Ed staff 
• Pine Tree Recycling - 85 trees chipped created mulch for beneficial use in Pahrump Extension Demonstration Garden

Horticulture Education is the foundation of the Master Gardener program, now delivered in new statewide style via Zoom, as Home Horticulture Level 1 and 2. This year 8 out of 10 Nye County students achieved certification to become active interns.

• In-person Workshops attracted 435 attendees, including
  • Beekeeping (27) 
  • Demonstration Days in the Garden (88) 
  • Winter Season Tree Care (105) 
  • Pruning with ML (25) 
  • Irrigation with ML (20) 
  • Pop-up workshops at Pahrump Farmers’ Market with ML (70) • Other Extension Horticulture classes offered via Zoom attracted 189 Nye County attendees, including 
  • IPM Series (18) 
  • Grow Your Own, Nevada! (80) 
  • Growing in Small Spaces (13) 
  • Gardening Under the Stars (64) 
  • NDA (14)
• Other Extension Programs available to Nye County residents, hosted by Pahrump office during FY23-24 included: 
  • Cattlemen’s Update (shown via Zoom) 
  • Radon Education (50) free radon test kits distributed

Program Impacts of Northern Nye County

Extension efforts and impacts address four community identified critical needs, with primary efforts on Community & Economic Development and Personal & Family Development program areas, and Agriculture.

Northern Nye County Extension Program Reach

TOTAL CONTACTS 3,630
Youth Contacts 2,675
Adult Contacts 730
Volunteer Instances 225

Personal & Family Development: 4-H Community Groups

All children face risks as they grow and develop, and most children can benefit greatly from positive interactions with caring adults. Children who have strong interpersonal skills and support are less likely to participate in risky behaviors.

• 2,600+ Contacts with Youth: Our professional staff created and delivered 4-H youth programming, in the form of group and club meetings, community events, special interest activities, and day camps. Below are details regarding the programs Extension delivered to the Round Mountain and Tonopah communities:

Club, Projects & Groups: 2,730 Contacts with Youth with 287 instances of adult participation and 152 instances of volunteering

• Cloverbuds: for our youngest youth ages 5-8 years old. This 4-H program inspires curiosity in our young learners, encouraging exploration, creativity and cultivating a spirit of community service.
• Keeping Fit & Healthy: helping youth understand the importance of eating healthy and being active. Placing the youth on the right path to healthy habits. 
• Visual Arts: offers creative outlets for youth to express their feelings and emotions through many mediums. Youth get hands on opportunities to create and display their works.
• Vet & Horse Science: for older youth interested in a rigorous science-based program that teaches animal anatomy, dissection, prevention and care of sick or injured domestic animals and medication administration.

Special Interest Programs: 399 Contacts with Youth with 153 instances of adult participation and 12 instances of volunteering

Community & Economic Development

Community development is the foundation for all economic development. The residents in and around Tonopah, through conversations with 125 individuals, including 50 agencies and organization, collectively identified three critical needs:

1. No Hospital/Lack of medical services
2. No licensed child care (in-home or center-based)
3. Lack of housing

Meeting these needs is crucial to the stabilization and future growth of the community. Northern Nye County has been experiencing a reduction of families and working age people. Creating an action plan to address critical community identified needs, simultaneously serve as both 1) prevention strategy for community trends, societal issues and at-risk behaviors and 2) talent-retention strategy to support recruitment and retention of critical professionals (medical providers, teachers, scientists) and families.

Where appropriate, Extension efforts support the community in addressing these critical needs.

• Game Night! Series: a 6-part community engagement series, in partnership with local businesses and agencies, bringing people together through fun and games
  • 104 instances of programming provided to local adults, fostering community engagement and social development
• Medical: partnership with agencies to bring resources and technical assistance to expansion of medical services, including the Remote Area Medical and Lions Club Vision Event, multiple resource fairs, and healthcare survey
  • 140+ community members served in Tonopah and Duckwater ✓ Rural Partners Network Member: in partnership with the USDA and Nye County to develop funding proposals and technical support for projects addressing local medical and child care needs
• Child Development Center Project: in partnership with Nye County and USDA Rural Partner Network, Extension provided technical assistance to the Child Development Center project
• Child Development Champion: provides local advocacy for funding and assistance in “child care deserts” 
• Capacity Building: Child Development Associate, Babysitting Certification, and Building Blocks of Community Sustainability and Resilience

Agriculture & Natural Resources

Every year the country, and state, experience a loss of farmers and ranchers. Alarmingly, more producers are leaving the agricultural industry than there are entering it. With agriculture identified as a national security issue, it is growing increasingly important to support and expand the industry to meet future demand. This need, to domestically feed our own, is in direct conflict with our limited water resources in Nye County and the state. With over appropriated water basins and water right retirement plans, agricultural producers are faced with the challenge of keeping their land in production with less water.

Concurrently, America is on a path to net-zero emissions by 2050 with solar projects an integral component to federal and state strategies. The Nye County public has expressed opposition to single-priority solar projects for multiple reasons, which include unkept industry promises, lack of land stewardship, loss of social use on public land projects, and lack of direct community benefits, among others. Solar project development Extension efforts work to address these critical needs.

• Agrivoltaics: the numerous utility scale solar project permit applications have alarmed citizens and local jurisdictions. Shared land use strategies, such as agrivoltaics, provide potential benefits that may be of interest to Nye County. Agrivoltaics could be leveraged to increase new agricultural production and retain existing producers at the county and state level, while generating electricity
• Public Land Use Projects & Community Benefit Agreements: federal land use projects do not pay local property tax and many large-scale projects are receiving state tax abatements, leaving little financial benefit for host communities. Community Benefit Agreements can be codeveloped (between the project owner and community members) and ranked during local permitting processes, to ensure direct community benefit to communities impacted by projects.
• Capacity Building Rural-Frontier-Tribal Communities: National and state demand for minerals (lithium, gold, silver, copper) and renewable energy production disproportionately impacts Nevada’s rural, frontier, and tribal communities. These communities are asked to shoulder the burden of these large-scale projects in the face of limited social and community infrastructure that negatively impacts community sustainability and capacity to engage in initiatives. With limited technical experts and resources in rural, frontier, and tribal communities, they are dependent on urban center decision makers to deploy the technical knowledge and resources to meet collective goals, highlighting the urban-rural-frontier-tribal connections. Viewing community capacity as a “limiting factor”, to economic development and conservation efforts, will help researchers and decision makers develop strategies in deploying urban centered technical knowledge and resources to rural, frontier, and tribal communities to help achieve collective goals and increase success of state-wide initiatives. It is an unrealistic expectation to simply offer the rural-frontier-tribal communities’ access to grant money and expect them to have the technical knowledge to develop project proposals. That technical knowledge must be deployed from the urban centers. In turn, the minerals and energy production will benefit the urban centers and contribute to state-wide goals. Northern Nye County Extension works to represent and teach to these urban-rural-frontier-tribal connections to develop community capacity.

Fiscal Year 2023-2024 County Funds Summary

$319,024 Opening Balance
$241,568 Revenue
$313,601 Expenses

Revenue

$130,657 State
$ 84,355 Federal
$313,601 County
$ 52,229 Grants
$ 12,075 Gifts Allen,