June 5, 2019 has been designated by my organization UC Agriculture and Natural Resources "Big Dig Day", which basically means dig in the soil, dig in your heart and dig in your wallet for the programs you care about.
Sure we have people doing a lot of good things statewide, but since state and Federal funds are not adequate to meet the challenges coming at us in the future, from population growth, to technology deployment to management of scarcer resources, private contributions on this day are being requested to help us enhance our work.
I'm pretty fortunate though since I am able to count on support from individual growers (this is huge), grants from Federal and state agencies, private interests and the California Strawberry Commission. In other words, for the time being, I'm good.
Then again, as County Director for UC Cooperative Extension Santa Cruz county office, I oversee a lot more than just strawberries and caneberries! One of the programs I particular take pride in is the 4H program we have here; in case you haven't heard it's about more than cows and cooking these days and they are doing work on keeping our youth engaged in science and technology. For sure, getting kids ready for our future through a tried and true program like Santa Cruz County 4H (110 years and counting) is a big job that your donation is going to help enhance.
On this Big Dig Day, personally I'm doing more than talk about it and putting up some of my own money to this great program and all the wonderful things it is doing and will do for the kids in our community. I'm asking you to think about doing the same.
On June 5, tomorrow, not earlier and not later, you'll find 4H Santa Cruz County donation button two or three clicks away. Me, the volunteers and kids in this wonderful program thank you.
