Published: March 24, 2008 03:06 pm            

Willing workers of the county, unite!

Grant County women’s organization helps people with community, education programs

A group of Grant County women — although dwindling in numbers — continues to make a difference in the lives of local and area residents through community service projects and education programs.

Willing Workers Home and Community Education group, a branch of the Oklahoma Home and Community Education group, works to promote community and home through community service projects and its Grant County association. Grant County once boasted 22 groups, but now has just three.

The Willing Workers HCE group has 12 members.

The groups typically consisted of homemakers and farmer’s wives. While the membership numbers have fallen off in recent years, at least one Grant County group continues to promote the group’s mission through projects.

“Us farm women are getting older,” said Donna Jean Tebow, a 50-plus year member of the Willing Workers Home and Community Education group in southeastern Grant County. “We do what we can.”

The purpose of Oklahoma Home and Community Education is to develop leadership, and to promote and extend the best interests of the family, home and community through a County HCE Association. The county organization is made up of the membership of each local group, which is governed by the elective officers of the county organization, and the presidents and secretaries of all local groups.

Oklahoma Home and Community Education Inc., is a program of continuing education in all aspects of home and community life, according to the OHCE Web site. The organization’s ultimate mission is to educate its members to be well-informed and able to handle change in their homes and communities. Through its relationship with the Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service, OHCE presents research-based information to its members.

Monthly educational lessons, leadership development and community service projects provide OHCE members an opportunity to apply this research-based information in their homes and communities.

The Willing Workers HCE group does just that, most recently with an annual project that provides tooth fairy pillows to the kindergarten students at Deer Creek-Lamont Elementary School.

The HCE members sew the pillows from patterns, then draw faces on them and stuff them. They sew a pocket on the back and include a note on how to use the pillow.

Tebow said the group typically delivers the hand-made pillows to the school each February during National Children’s Dental Health Month. The group members have also recruited local and area dentists to provide free toothbrushes to put in the pillows.

The Cooperative Extension Service is based at Oklahoma State University with offices and Extension Educators serving each county. OHCE is a statewide and county-based organization.

County extension educators in family and consumer sciences serve as advisors to county HCE organizations. District and state cooperative extension specialists and supervisors work with county extension educators and the OHCE program. Working in a cooperative effort, OHCE members and extension educators identify local issues facing families. These issues become the basis for OHCE educational programming and efforts are made to help families solve these problems, according to the OHCE Web site.

Another service project of Willing Workers HCE in Grant County is the annual scholarship awarded to a Deer Creek-Lamont High School senior. Each year, the group awards $300 toward the student’s college education.

In May, the group hosts an appreciation coffee for Lamont residents.ꆱ