At a glance: Outreach on Family Financial Health.

SoHE Professor and students save $$$ for low income families. For several years, Prof. Mike Gutter has led the Volunteers in Tax Assistance project, in which his students provide free, tax season assistance to low income families. Last year, they helped in the preparation of over 3,800 tax returns, helping low-income families gain over $5 million in returns and saving them over $800,000 in tax preparation fees.

Consumer Science student T. Seiling

Consumer Science student Taylor Seiling provides free tax Preparation assistance as part of Project VITA

Promoting consumer Promoting consumer and business co-ops across North America and the globe.

Prof. Ann Hoyt has for many years led the most important (just about the only) training institutes for leaders of consumer food co-ops in business cooperatives. She is also conducting comparative research on successful cooperative development techniques in Africa and in limited resource communities in the United States. From consumer food co-ops in the heartland to cooperatives of retail bakeries, this SoHE project leads to community economic vitality.

Ann Hoyt

Professor Ann Hoyt

Prof. Goebel’s classroom is large, 11,190 square miles to be exact.

For the last quarter century, Prof. Karen Goebel has been delivering 30-50 presentations per year, all over the state, teaching an average of 1,500 to 2,000 public citizens each year. Kenosha? Been there. Superior? Been there. LaCrosse, Green Bay, Eagle River? Yep, she’s been there too. An economist with an Extension appointment in the School, Prof. Goebel’s main topics have been marital property reform, family estate planning, identity theft, and advance directives for health care. Says the Extension Agent in LaCrosse, "Karen's style and method of presentation always result in a full house. Participants want toknow when she will be returning for additional programs.”

Karen Goebel

Professor Karen Goebel

Using community-based research to help reduce hunger in Wisconsin.

The step before hunger is food insecurity, and many Wisconsin families live in chronic insecurity about having enough food by week’s end. To help local government and non-profits that address the needs of low-income families, Prof. Judi Bartfeld’s Food Security Project gathers local data from around Wisconsin to chart statewide trends in food insecurity.

Judi Bartfeld

Professor Judi Bartfeld

Health care for children from low-income families.

One of the problems in health care coverage is that existing programs are not utilized by many eligible, low income families. Headed by Prof. Roberta Riportella, /Wisconsin Covering Kids and Families/ is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to create greater awareness and utilization of these health care programs. The project works primarily through a coalition of more than 75 organizations, including county Extension offices, that work with low income families who are likely to have family members eligible for Medicaid or BadgerCare.

covering kids

lawton

Lt. Governor Barbara Lawton moderates a panel at a conference co-sponsored by the Covering Kids and Families Project

Promoting Community-Supported Agriculture in Wisconsin and the World

Prof. Lydia Zepeda is an economist who doesn't hesitate to put on work gloves and follow her own advice. One strand of her research points the way toward agricultural productivity and self-sufficiency, especially through small-scale agriculture in developing countries. But her advice to international economists can also be applied to food security for low-income Americans. So, while publishing research on small-scale, community-based agriculture in Latin America, she has also stepped off campus to help establish community-based agriculture here in Wisconsin. As project director of a university-community partnership with Troy Gardens (a Madison nonprofit), Zepeda has been working with Agronomy Professor Bill Tracy and community farmer Claire Strader to establish and make sustainable an urban farm on what was city-owned land in Madison, and set up a system by which neighbors could own shares in the produce grown next door.

Zepeda and her graduate students are also researching the viability of a specialty crop for the land: huitlacoche (or corn mushrooms), a gourmet delicacy that was a traditional food of corn-growing peoples of the Americas. Zepeda’s team are studying the costs of producing huitlacoche, the viability of local marketing, and are hosting workshops on how to cook with it. The project has created paid internships for UW students who are learning about both organic agriculture and programs for youth.

(See more at www.troygardens.org)

vegetables

gardens

lydia and students

Prof. Zepeda with Agronomy grad student

Camilla Vargas and farmer Claire Strader