| |
Last
March when Rudy Deck, Coupeville, prowled the halls of Congress
he turned congressional staff heads when he said, 'I'm just a volunteer.'
Don Meehan, Island County Cooperative Extension chair, says staffers'
antennae would go up as they listened to Deck. 'It changed the way
they listened. Quality volunteers are a valuable asset.'
Deck,
Meehan and Blair Wolfley, director of Cooperative Extension's Southwest
District, were in the nation's capital for the National Leadership
Seminar sponsored by the National Association of State Universities
and Land-Grant Colleges. Deck is an Island County Beach Watcher
volunteer.
For 20 years, university administrators, faculty and people who
serve in advisory capacities for the nation's land-grant universities
have attended the seminar.
'The
goal is to provide volunteers an opportunity to have a Washington-based
experience that provides cutting edge, up-to-date information about
topics that are relevant across the country,' said Linda Kay Benning,
NASULGC's associate director for extension and outreach. In addition,
there's leadership training for their skill development.'
This year's event attracted 200 people from 25 states.
After
the conference, Deck, Meehan and Wolfley embarked on a series of
appointments with members of the state's Congressional delegation.
'We walked in to lobby for funding for three initiatives that we
carried forward for the university,' Meehan said. 'One of the initiatives,
my favorite, was for regional funding for Beach Watchers.' (The
others were Diabetes Awareness Education and Organic Cropping Research
and Education.)
|
 |
Don
Meehan and Blair Wolfley pose for a picture with Kate Sinner,
an aide in Third District Congressman Brian Baird's office
in Washington, DC. |
'Our
goal,' said Deck, 'is to clone and expand the highly successful
Island County-based WSU Beach Watchers program into six more counties
bordering Puget Sound.' Meehan created the Beach Watchers volunteer
program in 1990. About 200 Island County extension Beach Watcher
volunteers annually contribute some 12,000 hours of volunteer
labor to monitor the health of more than 32 beaches, and reach
50,000-60,000 citizens with educational information about the
fragile ecosystem and promote a stewardship ethic.
'It
really was an opportunity for us to share information with legislators
that would make them more effective with their clientele,' Wolfley
said of the congressional visits.
In 2002-03, federal funding, including competitive grants, accounted
for just under 25 percent of WSU Cooperative Extension's expenditures
and just over 35 percent of the expenditures of the Agricultural
Research Center in the College of Agriculture and Home Economics.
Dennis
Brown,
Information Department
|
|
