Category Archives: Klamath County

OSU Extension intern explores career aspirations through current opportunities

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Hey everyone! My name is Mackenzie Wesley, and I just wrapped up my sophomore year studying sports management and equine business management at Asbury University in Kentucky. I am so excited to get to serve this summer as the Klamath County Extension foresty intern. Having grown up in the Klamath Basin, I am thrilled at the chance to pour back into the community that has poured so much into me. This is my first year interning with the Klamath County Extension office, but I am excited about everything that is going to happen.  

Mackenzie Wesley leans against a fence post and smiles for a picture. Photo: Tyra Mast

I will be assisting our head of foresty, Kidane Giday, in organizing a county-wide 6th grade education event focused on forestry. During this tour, students will be exposed to various aspects of preservation, maintenance and general outdoor knowledge. This will be done through eight stations that will be set up in a loop with each station touching on a different aspect of natural resources and forestry knowledge. Having taken some natural resource and outdoor skill classes myself, I am incredibly excited to get to create a space where 6th graders will get to learn about the world around them in a hands-on way. This event will also have natural resources and forestry professionals as educators at every station, which is an excellent way to build career awareness. I am looking forward to getting the opportunity to expand my event management skills as that is something that I am looking at going into once I graduate.  

Over the summer I hope to improve my emailing skills, mass communication skills and gain a foundational understanding of what it takes to program and run an event such as the one I explained above. I am also looking forward to spending time learning more about forestry in the Klamath Basin and working with the incredible team at the Klamath Basin Research and Extension Center. 

Planning special events at the Klamath County Farmers Market was the highlight of my internship

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A woman in a gray sweatshirt sits outside at a table covered in a green checked tablecloth
Madelyn Bloom manning the table at the Klamath County farmers market.
Photo credit: Jordan Rainwater

Hi everyone, it’s Madelyn Bloom again. I can’t believe the summer is over. As I finish up my internship with OSU Extension in Klamath County, I reflect and see that it’s been an amazing experience. The people I have been able to work with and learn from have been so special to me. I’m going to miss coming and working with them. Also, the work I have been doing has been fulfilling, to see project ideas like the art calendar come to life or the special event ideas for the Klamath County Farmers Market. Something memorable about my summer internship has been learning all about how OSU Extension works, from people bringing bugs into the front office to being at the fair. I also got to help with Produce Connection, which is such an incredible program.

Customer location dot survey.
Photo credit: Madelyn Bloom

By far my favorite project which I worked on and was able to lead was reaching out to different community members and organizations inviting them to come and have a booth at the farmers market. I was able to find a special event for every Saturday of the market which helped boost attendance at the market. The market is so special. If you ever find yourself in Klamath Falls in the summer make sure to stop by.

I would like to thank everyone in the Extension office in Klamath County for making my summer experience amazing. I would also like to thank the Klamath County Farmers Market for showing me so many cool and interesting ways of how farmers markets work. I would highly recommend the OSU Extension internship to any students who are looking for an internship. Thank you so much for a great summer.

 

A small town with amazing opportunities

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Children sit on stools at a table under a canopy with a colorful sign inviting them to make kites,
Making colorful kites.
Photo credit: Madelyn Bloom.

Hey everyone, my name is Madelyn Bloom. I’m an intern with Oregon State University Extension Service in Klamath County, working closely with our amazing farmers market. I am currently attending California State University, Fresno, where I am majoring in agricultural business. I will graduate in May 2024. I have been living in the Klamath Basin for six years and I’m excited that I get to help in my community. When I read about this opportunity, I was very excited since I have always been interested in what Extension does and it interests me as a future career.

People wandering around a busy farmers' market.
Farmers market in Klamath Falls.
Photo credit: Madelyn Bloom.

If you have been to Klamath Falls you would know that it is a smaller town but has some amazing opportunities. Personally, I think the Klamath Falls Farmers Market is an incredible place where the small local farmers of the Klamath basin get to sell their fresh produce. It’s also a great place where the incredible artisans get a place to share their products. My role is going to be finding special events to help boost the attendance at the market. The market received a grant from the county to help with that, so I get the opportunity to find community members, non-profit organizations and local businesses that want to be a part of the market. I work at the market every Saturday at the Extension market booth. That’s where we answer any questions and people can use their Oregon Trail Cards to exchange them for tokens that which can be used with vendors. We also are a part of the Double Up Bucks, which is a program that matches up to $20 off the Oregon Trail Card every Saturday so essentially that is $80 extra a month for participants.

I also have been working on our local elementary school art contest and taking the best 21 drawings and making them into an academic calendar. I have worked many hours on this project because it has been more challenging than I expected. I have finally finished, and it is on the final steps.

Bringing pollinator education to youths in Klamath County

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Alyssa Tollefson

Hello, my name is Alyssa Tollefson and I am an intern in the OSU Extension office in Klamath County. I just graduated from Henley High school in Klamath Falls. In high school, my interests and classes I took varied greatly. I started my freshman year wanting to be a lawyer or an interior designer. As the year progressed, I took my deep love of learning and applied for an internship with Nicole Sanchez, horticulture Extension faculty in Klamath County. At that time, I didn’t know much about OSU Extension, so my goal was to learn more. My job focused mainly on horticulture as well as some entomology aspects. Throughout my time working with Nicole, I gravitated more towards entomology as I just wanted to learn as much as possible.

I have decided to get my associate degree in agricultural science and continue down my line of work with breeding goats but also use my entomology knowledge in everyday farming life and as a hobby. As for how I will be using my internship to research the different types of pollinators and putting together a visual display of the non-bee pollinators. Concluding the summer and my internship, I plan to host an event for the youths in the Klamath Basin to come and see pollinators up close under microscopes and learn more about them.

Learning the local food system in Klamath County

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Hi all! I’m Brady Monteith, reaching out from sunny Klamath Falls. I’m on a bit of a different schedule down here at the OSU Extension office in Klamath County, and I’m quickly approaching the end of my time here before I pack up and head down to Arizona. It’s been an eventful 12 weeks, and I’m so grateful for all the learning opportunities I’ve had.

My main project this summer has been Double Up Food Bucks at our local farmer’s market. We worked with the market coordinator and our local vendors to create programs that encourage more people to use their SNAP-Ed benefits for local produce. Each week, we had a different “Featured Food” that we tried to line up with what was in season. At our booth we would have various Extension Food Hero resources such as recipes and informational handouts about our Featured Food. We put together a market tour, which was essentially a short scavenger hunt with some sample questions that encouraged shoppers to explore the market and communicate with local growers. We also collected information and put together profiles on our local vendors, still with the hope that we can help shoppers get to know the people who grow their food.

Another project I’ve been working on is the delivery of the Cooking Matters class, both in-person and virtually. The last three weeks I’ve been helping Paolina Mulleneix, Extension’s Farm to School outreach program coordinator in Klamath County, deliver the Cooking Matters for Families class virtually. We’ve had about five families join in Zoom each week and we all cook a meal together. Just this last week, we taught the Cooking Matters For Teens class in-person out in Chiloquin. On the first day of class only two kids showed up, but the last day we had seven. We spent an hour with the kids each day, talking to them about how to eat healthy and be safe in the kitchen. By the end of each day the kids went home with a delicious meal they had prepared themselves.

This internship has been incredibly insightful and has allowed me to see nearly every aspect of our local food system. Over the last couple weeks, I’ve been meeting with people who play a part in our food system, from growers to policy writers.  The experiences I’ve had have been so valuable, and I can’t wait to see how I will be able to apply them in my future studies.

Understanding the food systems in Klamath County

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Hello everyone! My name is Brady Monteith, and I’m a sophomore at the University of Arizona, studying nutrition and food systems. Although I go to school Arizona, I grew up in Klamath Falls, Oregon. I’m back home for the summer, so I’m interning with the OSU Extension office in Klamath County. Klamath is a very ag-centric community, so I’ve grown up surrounded by agriculture. My family owns and operates a commercial farm, and my first job was to drive tractor and rake hay, so I’ve always felt quite connected to that side of the food system. 

During my internship I will be working under the supervision of Patty Case. My goal through this internship will be to better understand the Klamath food systems and the many people who play many diverse roles in it. I will be doing this through a few different projects. The main project I will be working on will be Extension’s role at the local farmers market. We will be working with the market director to provide nutrition education and help people to use their SNAP-Ed benefits to purchase local produce. I will also be assisting Extension Master Gardeners in their role at the farmers market. In addition to these projects, I will be assisting with the Cooking Matters program, to further expand on the nutrition education side of things. 

Before starting this internship, I really didn’t know much about OSU Extension. I had heard of Master Gardeners, but only knew that some people used them to test their soil. I came into the internship with pretty much no knowledge of what I would end up doing. However, the wonder people at Extension were quick to help get me oriented and have given me every tool I need to be successful.