Program Impacts
Master Gardeners
The Master Gardener program oversees our community garden, and is involved with essential community outreach. The gardeners hold monthly talks at the community garden covering a variety of subjects related to horticulture, participate in the farmers' markets, help with garden tours during pollinator week, and a variety of other pop-up events.
During the 2024-2025 season, the gardeners held nine talks at the community garden, with a total of 86 participants.
4-H Youth Development
The Carson City and Storey County 4-H youth development programs strive to impact youth in our counties with after-school clubs, festivals and day camps throughout the year. These programs reached 1,990 youth in 2024-2025. The goal of our programs aim to help youth find their spark, encourage others, build leadership abilities and form lifelong friendships within our county and others. Our volunteers push to help the youth develop the skills they wish to obtain by guiding the youth with positive direction. A total of 14 volunteers will make these education forms possible in our area.
- Total youth members in organized clubs: 160
- Total Active Clubs: 9
- Total youth members in after-school clubs: 300
- Fremont Elementary School
- Boys and Girls Club
- Total 4-H Day Club Enrollments: 38
- Carson City Extension held at Fuji Park Exhibit
- Virginia City at Gallagher Elementary
- Total youth participating in 4-H camping programs:1
- Total number of Adult Volunteers: 14
- Total Number of youth volunteers: 10
- Total outreach opportunities: 8 and indirect contact with activities-1,500
- Total youth reached: 1,990
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Education (SNAP-Ed)
Extension’s Health and Nutrition department remains committed to bringing SNAP-Ed programming to limited-resource, SNAP-Ed eligible Carson City and Storey County residents through nutrition education, health promotion, policy, systems, and environmental (PSE) approaches. During the 2024-2025 time period, the Health & Nutrition team developed and utilized:
- 5 strong partnerships with youth-based organizations
- Carson City School District Nutrition Services
- Edith W. Fritsch Elementary School
- JC Fremont Elementary School
- Chartwells
- Boys and Girls Club of Carson City
- Go Wild w/ Fruits & Veggies! Youth programming
- Fremont Elementary School (4th grade): 94 unique students reach, 591 repeat contacts
- Fritsch Elementary School (4th grade): 105 unique students reach, 732 repeat contacts
- Pick a Better Snack Youth Programming
- Fritsch Elementary School (3rd grade): 77 unique students reached
- Boys & Girls Club: 82 unique students reached, 90 repeat contacts
11 policy, systems, and environmental (PSE) changes were made across 2 PSE sites:
- Fremont Elementary School
9 changes made
After providing DE, the site received posters to support healthy messaging and choices in the classroom and lunchroom areas.
- Fritsch Elementary School
2 new changes made, 7 changes maintained
The school implemented several PSE changes to support healthier eating, including updated food displays, colorful nutrition posters, creative menu naming, taste tests, and consistent staff encouragement of fruit and vegetable choices. Students also engaged in hydroponic gardening, partnered with local markets, and integrated nutrition lessons into the classroom to connect food growing, science, and community engagement.
Fritsch ES was awarded a Gold Level Certificate for their continued commitment in creating healthy spaces for their students.
In Total, 639 students were reached through school wide healthy food tasting events at Fremont & Fritsch Elementary Schools.
SNAP-Ed also continued its partnership with the Boys and Girls Club of Western Nevada, completing an eight-week summer course, reaching 93 individual Boys and Girls Club members, where they learned the value of making healthy and nutrient-conscious food and snack choices.
Living With Fire in Storey County
Between July 2024 and June 2025, Living With Fire supported wildfire preparedness and community education efforts in Storey County through direct engagement, presentations, and public events. Staff partnered with local organizations and residents to increase awareness of wildfire risk and promote preparedness at both the neighborhood and county levels.
Community Engagement and Presentations:
- Feb. 26, 2025 – Participated in the Tahoe Fire and Fuels Team (TFFT) Retreat in Storey County (30 participants)
- June 14, 2025 – Hosted a booth and engaged residents during the Storey County Evacuation Drill in Virginia City (65 participants)
- June 21, 2025 – Presented at the Virginia City Highlands HOA Meeting to discuss defensible space, home hardening, and wildfire preparedness (50 participants).
Living With Fire in Carson City
Between July 2024 and June 2025, Living With Fire supported wildfire preparedness and community education efforts in Carson City through direct engagement, presentations, and workshop facilitation. Staff partnered with agencies and local fire professionals to strengthen wildfire awareness and preparedness and collaborated with Carson City High School through the Living With Fire Art Contest.
About the Living With Fire Art Contest:
From January through May 2025, Living With Fire organized a statewide high school art contest. A total of 97 students from four high schools participated, including 33 from Carson City High School. The initiative encouraged students to explore the science of wildfire and their personal experiences, expressing those insights through original visual artwork. This creative effort extended wildfire education to Nevada youth and inspired thoughtful reflection on living with fire.
Community Engagement and Presentations:
- Jan. 16, 2025 – Attended the Sierra Front Wildfire Cooperators Meeting. (25 participants)
- Jan. 29–30, 2025 – Presented to Carson High School students about the Living With Fire High School Art Competition. (55 students engaged)
- Feb. 25, 2025 – Partnered with the Carson City Fire Department for the Community Fire Assistance Program. (90 participants)
- May 20, 2025 – Presented at the Carson City Wildfire Preparedness Workshop. (60 participants)
Nevada Economics Assessment Project (NEAP)
The NEAP is a statewide program with the mission to develop and maintain an extensive data archive with timely, meaningful, and consistent characteristics and a set of analytical tools used to provide Nevada’s communities with research and analysis of emerging issues through outreach and engagement.
State Parks Visitor Use Surveying
NEAP has partnered with State Parks since early 2022 for visitor use surveying across all 27 State Park locations in Nevada. State Parks staff recruit visitors at each park to take an online survey. The survey gives an extensive look at the visitors’ experience at the park, preferences for future change, and spending on their travels. The statewide data profile and Carson City economic and fiscal impact reports are available online.
Radon
The Nevada Radon Education Program (NREP) continues to demonstrate exceptional leadership, innovation, and impact in protecting the health of Nevadans. Through strategic outreach, industry training, public engagement, and policy advocacy, NREP is driving measurable progress toward reducing radon exposure—one test, one home, and one conversation at a time.
Carson County:
- # long & short-term test kits distributed - 5,669
- # of test kits used - 3,760
- % of test kits used - 66.3%
Storey County:
- # long & short-term test kits distributed – 216
- # of test kits used – 105
- % of test kits used – 48.6
Rural Housing Baseline Assessments
Housing affordability and availability are ongoing issues in Nevada. Housing data is often scattered across many sources with varying reliability and consistency, making it challenging to navigate. NEAP and Nevada Rural Housing have worked together since late 2022 with the goal of gathering and analyzing data to present the current housing situation in the counties and communities across the state. These tools are intended to inform decision-making by local leaders and private partners interested in contributing to rural Nevada's housing solutions.
Data collection and initial analysis has been performed for most counties across the state. Reports and fact sheets will be available by December 2025 for all counties.
The Carson County fiscal numbers
FY 2024 Expenses
- State - 53,037 F
- Federal - 15,602
- County - 174,244
- Grants - 86,382
- Gifts - 21,919
- Other - 10,284
- Total - 361,467
FY 2025 Funds Summary
- Opening Balance - 341,390
- Revenue - 252,062
- Expenses - 174,244
- Ending Balance - 419,208
