CED serves as a resource and assistance center for limited resource families and individuals in pursuit of increasing their standard of living through entrepreneurship community program participation, home ownership, and government assistance programs.
AgriLife Extension in Harris County has two horticulture agents serving the population of 4.3 million residents. Therefore, there exists a need for trained volunteers to assist the agents in providing education in order to be able to reach greater numbers of residents on the best ways to conserve water in their landscapes and gardens.
An Earth-Kind Water Star volunteer training course was presented to 49 participants to cover various topics related to water conservation and water quality protection practices. Topics included evapotranspiration technologies; rainwater harvesting; turfgrass maintenance practices (including fertilization and irrigation, water conserving technologies, irrigation system evaluations, soil, and integrated pest management), water efficient turf management, and the selection, planting and maintenance of adapted plants for area landscapes.
Eight sessions, three hours long, were conducted which included lectures and hands-on outdoor activities to train participants in residential landscape water conservation.
The participants trained in the course have begun to volunteer their time in many Extension programming activities including assisting with educational programs on water conservation and EarthKind landscaping practices, speaking to various groups about water conservation in the landscape and assisting Extension clientele with answers to their questions. This group of volunteers is therefore greatly expanding the number of residents that the horticulture agents of Texas AgriLife Extension in Harris County can reach with research based information on residential landscape water conservation practices.
interests and talents. The presentation supplemented the CEP FCH current series on Money Management hosted at the location.
clients were provided information and resources about starting a business and the various components on entrepreneurship including:
• The Definition of an Entrepreneur
• Myths about Entrepreneurship
• 10 Steps to Start a Business
• Resources
• Group discussions
agriculture AND natural resources earth-kind water conservation volunteer course
https://harris.agrilife.org/hort/publications-links/soils/