Cultivating Tomorrow: A Special Episode for Cougs Give 2024

In this special episode of The Evergreen Thumb podcast, we’re excited to support the Master Gardener Endowed Chair Campaign as part of Cougs Give 2024. Join us as we sit down with special guests Washington Statewide Master Gardener Program Director, Jennifer Marquis, and Director of CAHNRS Development, Chalayne Foster, to discuss the importance of this campaign and its impact on the future of gardening education.

Jennifer and Chalayne share their expertise and insights into the goals of Cougs Give 2024, and the significance of establishing the Master Gardener Endowed Chair, including how it will contribute to advancing research-based gardening practices and environmental stewardship. We delve into the vision behind the campaign, the goals it aims to achieve, and how listeners like you can get involved and make a difference.

WSU CAHNRS and the WSU Extension Master Gardener Program will be doling out all kinds of tidbits during this campaign so be sure to follow them on social media to follow along. Links are below.

In this episode, we discuss:

• What is Cougs Give?
• How we can support the WSU Extension Master Gardener Program during Cougs Give
• How an endowed professor will enhance the Master Gardener program in Washington State.

• Become a Cougs Give Ambassador
• Give to the WSU Extension Master Gardener Endowed Chair Campaign (Link will only work on 4/17)
• Learn more about the Endowed Chair Campaign
• Follow WSU CAHNRS on Facebook or Instagram
• Follow WSU Master Gardener Program on Facebook or Instagram
• Follow the Cougs Give Leaderboard on 4/17

[00:00:00] Erin Landon: Welcome to this special episode of the Evergreen Thumb. I have two guests today. Chalayne Foster is a Director of Development at WSU Foundation and Jennifer Marquis is the statewide WSU Extension Master Gardener Program Director. They’re here today to talk to us about Cougs Give, which is a special day of giving on April 17th, and how you can support the WSU Extension Master Gardener Program Endowed Chair Campaign.

We’ll start with Chalayne. Can you tell us a bit about what Cougs Give is and what it’s all about?

[00:00:37] Chalayne Foster: Absolutely. Thank you for having us. My name is Chalayne Foster and I am a Director of Development here at the College of Agriculture, Human, and Natural Resource Sciences, and um, this year Cougs Give is a 24-hour giving campaign on April 17th where tens of thousands of generous Cougs come together to pay it forward by donating to their causes, programs, scholarships, and experiences they’ve had through the Washington State University system. So all day long Cougs are getting together, coming back to support their alma mater.

It’s kind of a competition of sorts if you will. We love to see all of the WSU Cougs show up and, um, each individual college is promoting, their highlighted events for the day. And this year we have, in CAHNRS, we are, um, celebrating several different accounts. But, um, this year, the Washington State University Cougs Give campaign is really highlighting Cougs helping Cougs.

If you’re a part of the Coug family, that means you’re connected to a worldwide network of friends, peers, mentors, partners, and fellow Cougs. Um, that means that if we want to see each other exceed, we’re willing to help our peers along the way through mentorship, advocacy, support, and generosity. So, um, the mission here is just to come together and support your alma mater, share your.

You get to hear about WSU’s many notable goals, plans, and achievements, and successes within each individual college. And, um, we turn to social media to really share our stories about why WSU is so special to us. And then we’ll make gifts to support the areas that we care about the most.

[00:02:24] Erin Landon: Okay, so how can we support the Master Gardener program during Cougs Give?

[00:02:28] Chalayne Foster: So Cougs Give, I’m just gonna kind of pedal this over and over, but, um, we wanna see you turn out. You can check out cougsgive.wsu.edu where you can watch kind of during the day, April 17th. You can follow along all day long to see how each college is doing. And how each, each of their highlighted accounts are doing and how much money, um, is kind of coming in throughout the day.

So, um, for master gardeners, we, you can become an ambassador. We would love to see you become an ambassador. Join us online. Share our giving link on the day of, tell your friends and family about why you joined master gardeners, why you’re here and a part of it. Um, give to the program. Um, you can give to the program by following along either on the um, CAHNRS social media websites.

It’s a primarily, it’s a social media giving day. Um, so you can follow along in our CAHNRS, um, Facebook, uh, Twitter or X, and our Instagram. Then I would also encourage you to follow along with our WSU Master Gardeners program on Facebook. They will also be dropping information about what’s going to be happening the day of Cougs Give and how you can be an ambassador, how you can share your story, and how you can encourage your fellow, um, peers and family to join in and celebrate with us on this day.

[00:03:48] Erin Landon: Jennifer, so what is the focus of Cougs Give for the Master Gardener program?

[00:03:54] Jennifer Marquis: Erin, I just want to say thanks for hosting again. And uh, I’m Jennifer Marquis. I’m the statewide Master Gardener program director and it’s nice to have this opportunity to share about Cougs Give. Come together around Cougs Give and the Master Gardener program.

So, uh, this is the 3rd year in a row that, uh, WSU CAHNRS is highlighting the Master Gardener program during Cougs Give and, uh, we’re focused on raising $1.5 million to appoint, uh, an endowed chair. That may not mean a lot to very many people, depending on if you come from the world of academia, but, um, an endowed chair is essentially a professor, uh, that will be fully dedicated 100 percent of that person’s time to the Extension Master Gardener Program, right here at Washington State University.

These endowed chair positions are important because they fund that position in perpetuity. So once we reach that $1.5 million goal, the Extension Master Gardener Program is guaranteed to have an urban horticulturist who teaches, researches, and extends knowledge to and with WSU Extension faculty, staff, and volunteers forever as long as WSU is in existence.

They can’t take it away from us.

[00:05:32] Erin Landon: How would an endowed professor support the research-based gardening practices and environmental stewardship efforts that are so important to the Master Gardener program?

[00:05:42] Jennifer Marquis: Uh, lots and lots of different ways. So teaching volunteers, right? So the Master Gardener program volunteers are, uh, volunteer educators. They’re trained by Washington State University to deliver science-based, research-based, unbiased, horticulture and environmental stewardship education.

So this person will train the volunteers to deliver that information. It’ll be cutting edge because that faculty person will also have the responsibility to do some research; research with volunteers, research with faculty across the state on important topics in that local area. Things like the Master Gardener Program’s impact on food security. Or maybe, um, the Master Gardener Program’s impact on climate change.

We know that the work we do makes a difference in the lives of the people who participate either as volunteers or participate in our programs, but being able to have that research being done by a faculty person who can then, um, attribute what we’re doing to that improved life of health and wellness and resiliency. It’s important for the future of the program.

[00:07:16] Erin Landon: So what impact do you anticipate that the endowed chair would have on local gardening communities and sustainability initiatives?

[00:07:27] Jennifer Marquis: Well, um, you know, we, the Master Gardener program in Washington state reaches 300,000 people a year, right? And that’s a, that’s a lot of people in Washington, and those folks will have ready access to, to cutting-edge research that volunteers will gain from this endowed chair position and then be able to deliver that to the community.

The gardening community will adopt those practices into their own lives, right? That’s the intent. We want our, uh, program participants to, to, uh, employ sustainable gardening techniques, uh, that makes a difference. So it’s kind of like, you know, I think we go back to the grassroots piece where our program is explained as a grassroots effort.

So maybe there are small changes that individual people make in their yards. But those small changes made by 300,000 people all added together makes a really big impact. Big change occurs. And that endowed chair will bring public value beyond the sustainable gardening practices. When people have easy access to nutrient-dense foods, they eat more of those foods, lowering their risk of diabetes, obesity, heart disease, and, um, mental health disorders. These health issues cost Washingtonians billions of dollars annually

When there are plenty of pollinator-friendly gardens located in proximity to each other that provides pollinators easy access to nectar, right, that they need to move from flower to flower. to pollinate the foods that we need to eat.

One in every four bites of food that we eat needs a pollinator. So small changes make a big impact.

[00:09:36] Erin Landon: Will the endowed chair facilitate collaboration with other institutions and organizations that are related to gardening?

[00:09:45] Jennifer Marquis: Absolutely. Absolutely. We, um, in WSU and all of the other extension services across the nation, we work collaboratively all the time. Partnerships are incredibly important.

We have a bigger impact when we work together toward common goals. And when those goals cross county lines, when they cross state lines, and there are some that even cross national borders, they have an even broader impact and have the potential to increase available assets for future programming, kind of like the snowball effect.

I think we start small, we pick up more partners along the way until the project grows into some sort of multi-state or multi-nation project focused on meeting the needs in those local spaces, improving community health and wellness for a resilient Washington, where we foster discovery and innovation across many disciplines at WSU.

We create adaptable workforces. We provide a secure food supply system. We help maintain and sustain natural resources and we support thriving, healthy communities, families, and individuals. And we are and will be a resilient Washington because of those collaborations and partnerships.

[00:11:12] Erin Landon: Alright, is there anything else you’d like to add about the endowed chair campaign?

[00:11:17] Jennifer Marquis: I do want to say that we’ve already, um, you know, really shown up in a big way. In raising money for this campaign, specifically around April 17th and Cougs Give. The WSU Master Gardener Program leadership and, uh, Master Gardener Foundation of Washington State leadership have come together and put up a challenge, uh, equaling $7,900, and we want you to help unlock those challenges. Follow along on Cougs Give, um, on April 17th to learn how you can help unlock those challenges and help us reach our goal to raise $13,000 or more, maybe $16,000 on April 17th. Cougs Give. Go Cougs!

[00:12:09] Chalayne Foster: Go cougs!

[00:12:11] Erin Landon: Chalayne, is there anything that you would like to add about Cougs Give?

[00:12:14] Chalayne Foster: Just, you know, follow along, um, on the day of, as Jen mentioned, April 17th cougsgive.wsu.edu. If you’re interested in helping us reach our $1.5 million goal, following along the WSU Master Gardeners Program on Facebook. Following CAHNRS on Instagram, um, Facebook, and Twitter or X, um, just to kind of hear the little breadcrumbs that we’re going to be leaving for you about how you can unlock that $7,900 challenge matches that we have available.

And, um, we really want to see our big goal is we want to be competitive. Like Jen mentioned, we, we’ve been participating in Cougs Give for the last three years and each year our momentum picks up. And this year we’re really excited to see, um, our Master Gardeners community, volunteers, coordinators, um, everybody around Washington State to really turn out and show the support for, um, our beloved Master Gardeners program that started right here at Washington State University.

[00:13:11] Erin Landon: All right. Thanks so much for joining me. I’m excited for Cougs Give and see how much money we can raise.

[00:13:17] Chalayne Foster: Yes. Excited to see all of you there. Thank you for having us.

[00:13:20] Jennifer Marquis: Thank you, Erin. Cougs help Cougs.

[00:13:23] Erin Landon: Links to become a Cougs Give ambassador, to the CAHNRS social media platforms, as well as the WSU Master Gardener program Facebook page will all be on our website at evergreenthumb.mastergardenerfoundation.org/CougsGive24/