When the Extension Service planted a seedling 100 years ago they had big dreams.
They hoped the tree would grow strong and tall.
They hoped it would be fruitful.
So they tended it carefully and they watched.
What happened to this tree over the years has been nothing short of remarkable.
You see, it didn’t just MEET the women’s early expectations
– it has far surpassed anything they could have dreamed.
That’s what happens when you have determined and caring women, you add
expertise and advice, and you encourage women to follow their hearts.
The result is a towering tree with strong branches and amazing fruit.
Just as roots help nourish a tree, food was at the roots of the Extension and Community
Association.
It started with clubs to help girls grow and preserve tomatoes.
With Extension’s guidance, these girls were wildly successful
at turning their homegrown, home-canned vegetables into cash.
Within a year, their mothers were forming their own clubs.
They learned to grow more productive gardens to help feed
their families well, can the extras, and sell the
surplus.
What started out as Home Demonstration Clubs became known as Extension Homemaker Clubs
in the 1960s and today we are known as Extension and Community Association or ECA Clubs.
At first many people didn’t trust home canning to keep food safe to eat.
But the trained women of ECA found they could feed their families
healthy meals all year long – even in winter – thanks
to safe canning practices.
Women canned hundreds of jars of food.
They canned tomatoes, green beans, and other extras from the garden.
They also learned to preserve meat.
This preserved food sometimes literally meant the
difference between life or death, especially in the
early days of ECA and during the Great Depression.
The women sold surplus food to help their families stay afloat, but the women didn’t
keep their knowledge and skills to themselves.
They taught their neighbors how to plant gardens, can, and
survive.
They also brought surplus food to schools.
It broke the women’s hearts to think of any child
going hungry, so they turned extra canned tomatoes and milk into tomato soup and they
used extra milk to make hot cocoa.
These women were a force to be reckoned with.
Club members started to grow different vegetables -- especially when they found eager buyers
at community curb markets.
One magazine reporter couldn’t believe her eyes when she visited
one of North Carolina’s curb markets.
“I could not check on everything that was offered for sale that morning, but the following
is what I observed: Anything in the pork or beef
line, live or dressed chickens, vegetables of all
kinds—some of them with the dew still on.
Collard leaves were tied in little bundles with a pod
of red pepper, spinach, turnip greens and young turnips with the tops, green beans,
limas, cornfield beans, sugar peas, new potatoes,
raw sweet potatoes, and even baked sweet potatoes!
One woman had yeast dough weighed out in pound batches, wrapped in oiled paper.
Cakes—all kinds.
Cookies and chess pies.
I have not mentioned half of what was there.”
The ECA’s approach to food and health continues to adapt to the times.
With obesity and diabetes so prevalent these days, it’s been
very valuable for women to learn to eat the right
foods in the right amounts.
Diabetics in particular have gained knowledge and encouragement
about how to eat smart and move more.
The clubs also emphasize exercise for everyone and
gladly help spread the word throughout their communities.
Some trends have come full circle.
Many families today are pinched for money and concerned
about healthy eating, so it only makes sense that canning is again popular.
Home gardening and buying locally are big, too.
Also, newer generations are asking for help with cooking simple, healthy meals instead
of relying on fast food and processed food.
It may be convenient to grab quick food, but it’s not as
healthy and it does cost more.
Being healthy and saving money – that’s at the heart of ECA.
Few things are as vital to a family as its pocketbook.
ECA has always helped women with financial matters, whether it was during the
Great Depression or the high inflation days in the
early 1980s.
The clubs approached the issue in two ways – they helped families learn how to live
on less.
And they helped women discover ways to bring in cash.
ECA women have a long history of making crafts which proved to be very popular at county,
regional and state fairs.
The Village of Yesteryear, a popular attraction at the State Fair, has its
roots in ECA.
In the east and the west, they sold their craft products to tourists, providing
another source of income for the family.
Many club members launched home businesses that brought in badly needed money.
Some started thriving poultry operations.
Other club members brought goods to curb markets.
Their customers didn’t just buy their surplus
produce – the townspeople flocked in to buy extras like
flowers, cakes, and baskets.
Who knew the club members could help their families so much by
doing what they were already doing?
“We are positive if it had not been for the curb market we would have been in the
county home, or worse still, dependent upon relatives.
Our home was mortgaged and now we have our home, a comfortable one.
We own our car, a small savings account, and we don’t owe a
penny.”
The ECA women’s businesses helped diversify farms, stabilize families, and lessen dependence
on crippling credit.
Most of us don’t realize that a hundred years ago, some farmers paid 1,000
percent interest on loans.
The cash that women earned helped modernize the state because it helped pay for
improvements like indoor plumbing, electricity, and appliances.
The extra income even helped some tenant farmers buy their own farms.
It also helped children stay in school and even go to
college.
Many women found two kinds of dividends – money and friends.
Farm living could leave some women feeling lonely and isolated.
But women who joined ECA clubs gained confidence, poise,
and friends.
“First of all I think it is financial needs that prompt us to attend, and then once we
get started we cannot stop.
It isn’t a novelty that soon wears away.
It gets next to us and we always want to come back.
We look forward to seeing our customers whom we soon learn to love.
For we have learned through the curb market that
our town folks are just as sweet and pleasant as
they can be.”
In addition to bringing in more money, ECA members also learned how to do more with less.
These women learned to sew and sew well.
And they were ingenious, some making clothes from heavy cotton feed sacks or from their
husband’s old suits.
Families learned to make their own mattresses using surplus cotton from the
United States Department of Agriculture.
This program was revived in the 1960s.
ECA women have always been can-do women.
When their men were away in wars, they pulled together and helped bring in the crops.
These crops were badly needed not only for the
families, but also the nation.
During a period of high inflation in the 1980s, the ECA clubs helped members figure out ways
to conserve energy.
In the mid ‘80s, more than 121,000 families reduced their energy and water
use significantly by using auxiliary heating devices, water-saving gadgets, and energy-saving
window treatments.
The clubs also helped women find sources of extra income like furniture
refinishing or upholstery and starting home businesses.
In the process, the members of ECA clubs learn how to run a sound household.
They came to know the importance of good record-keeping,
budgeting, and planning.
It’s true that ECA women have always been close to their families and to one another.
But their nurturing and caring has never stopped there.
During the world wars, the club women were on the frontlines of community support.
They collected fat and scrap metal, grew Victory
Gardens, and knitted sweaters and socks for soldiers.
During the Great Depression, when times were desperate, the federal and state
governments paid for seed and emergency workers so club members could help those on the
dole learn to feed themselves.
After World War II, the women did not forget the hardships they had all gone through.
They embraced the United Nations because they wanted
so badly for war to end forever.
In this role, the women turned outward.
Through their association with the Associated Country Women of
the World, they began to see that women all over the world wanted to work together for
a common good.
They began traveling to Washington, D.C., New York City, and eventually other to countries
like Norway, Kenya and England.
During the 1960s and ‘70s, University Days on Wheels provided
educational tours to different states across America.
In 1976, an earthquake in Guatemala had cut more than 700 people off from their water
supply.
So the women and children in Guatemala had to walk two miles at great altitude to
reach the nearest water.
The ECA women raised enough money to build wells for three villages in Guatemala.
To pay for their projects, the women have somehow raised enormous sums of money, even
in the hardest of times.
This money has allowed the clubs to be amazingly generous.
During World War II, they helped raise money to renovate
and launch the hospital ship Larkspur.
And in 1966, Extension Homemakers donated $100,000 of their
“butter and egg” money to NC State University as seed money for a continuing
education center.
The Jane S. McKimmon Center for Extension and Continuing Education opened
its doors in 1976.
ECA continues to evolve to meet the needs around them.
The clubs have reached out to widowed people, to pregnant teens, to grandparents
raising their grandchildren, and to foster children.
There are programs like Aging with Gusto, Hispanic health fairs, and Black Churches
United for Better Health.
Club members have cleaned school yards and church grounds and they have helped in nursing
homes and health centers.
They reached out to women suffering from abuse.
They have made “fidget aprons” for people with Alzheimer’s
disease and sewn mastectomy pillows for cancer patients.
The support has extended to military families, too.
Many clubs collected coupons and sent them to military families here and abroad.
Some club members even knitted helmet liners for
soldiers and made cooling neck wraps for soldiers stationed in the Middle East.
The needs are ever-changing but the women’s hearts stay the same.
It’s a fact that the women of ECA know how to grow fabulous tomatoes, potatoes, and corn.
But they know how to grow something else, too --- minds.
It started with their love of reading.
In the 1930s, the county agents arrived at club meetings
with an inviting collection of library books.
And the club members decided that their rural locations shouldn’t stand in the way of
reading.
In typical style, they found an answer – bookmobiles.
These traveling libraries delighted families with fresh words to read.
Thanks to these books, rural folks got to travel to
faraway places, learn new skills, and even laugh.
Clubs also raised money to help establish libraries
in their communities, moving North Carolina from
one of the most illiterate states in 1941 to the one with the most bookmobiles in 1957.
Over the years, the ECA clubs continued to make reading a priority for all ages.
They often supported local schools, and women spent countless
hours tutoring children and reading to them.
They filled shelves across the state with books they bought.
Some of the women also helped other adults discover the joy of reading.
ECA clubs also donated books to many parents of newborns.
The club women knew that early reading could give babies’ and preschooler’s
minds a tremendous boost.
NC State and NC A&T State Universities -- the homes of ECA -- have hosted many educational
programs over the years including Homemakers Week when women from across the state
came to campus for a week of training and social activities.
There was even a very successful statewide music program conducted in partnership
with the Department of Public Instruction.
This program provided a wonderful way for women to connect with women from other
communities and counties.
From the early days, ECA clubs found a way to send promising women to college by providing
loans and scholarships.
Their drive to help the students got reinforced when the recipients
wrote to them.
“Thank you!
Thank you!
Thank you more times than I can count!
I’ve finally made it through mid-term with a B average.
I’m working very hard to be worthy of your support and trust.”
ECA has always responded to the needs of the community.
In the process, the women have been changed and so has the entire organization.
Club members often discover gifts that they could never have imagined.
They find passions and expand their horizons.
Many club members have become leaders, not only in their
organization, but also in their communities.
They’ve become mayors, county commissioners, and school board members.
Their experience in the clubs allowed them to move easily into
leadership roles.
During the 1918 flu pandemic, which killed half a million Americans, the club women stepped
forward in valuable and visible ways.
They cooked meals, taught about health, and helped with
home nursing and they served in emergency “hospitals” set up for the sick.
The state found it had an amazing resource during this time of
terror –an already-in-place organization of capable
women who could quickly mobilize and respond.
In the 1960s, black and white clubs began meeting together for the first time and found
they shared many of the same interests and concerns.
ECA women speak up at all levels.
They’ve held voter registration drives, met with congressmen
and legislators, and gotten involved in Court Watches.
Through leadership programs, they’ve gain skills in networking, diplomacy, relationship
building, professional development, and mentoring.
In recent years, some women took advanced training and became mentors.
They’ve become a formidable force helping master volunteer
programs like food preservation, money management and gardening.
When one club member was named Outstanding Leader of the Year in the 1980s she said,
“When I think how easily I could have missed being an Extension Homemaker, it’s really
frightening.
Just think what I would have missed!”
Many words of praise have been said about ECA -- words that have come from governors,
neighbors, and even children.
Little Mary Jo Forehand attended Shawboro Club meetings with her mother in 1965.
Mrs. Forehand said “She is a happy 3-year-old
when this time comes.
Recently after going home from the meeting and saying her prayers, Mary
Jo added, ‘Thank you, Lord, for Home Demonstration club.’”
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