2023 Committees - Contact Persons and Committee Descriptions
Manhattan Home Show – Sue McCollough and Barbara Pearson
Description: Design booth and displays for Home Show (Feb. 24-26), organize staffing of booth.
Manhattan Area Garden Tour – Colleen Hampton
Description: Identify and select 5-6 gardens for tour on June 10, communicate with owners, identify event date and ticket cost/s, publicize event, recruit EMG staff to help with tour, coordinate pre-tour and post-tour potluck.
Membership and Socials – Colleen Hampton
Description: Select program topics and identify, contact, and host our guest speakers at bimonthly meetings and potlucks. In addition, this committee is responsible for setting up the room with the appropriate number of tables and chairs, and supplying simple table decorations to create a welcoming environment for our fellow EMGs. Finally, this committee creates the annual program booklet that is distributed at the January meeting.
Butterfly Garden at Sunset Zoo – Jeff Petersen
Description: EMG volunteers maintain the butterfly garden at the Zoo from March through November and participate in the Earth Day and Pollinator Day events held annually at the Sunset Zoo. These outreach programs provide opportunities to distribute pollinator plants in the spring, to educate visitors by addressing their questions and promoting sound science-based gardening practices and offering hands-on butterfly-related activities for kids.
K-State Gardens – Sue McCullough and Mike Hufnagel
Description: The Rose Garden and Butterfly Garden committee activities were combined to broaden the scope of what EMGs do at the K-State Gardens. Activities may include providing educational information, conducting children’s programs, answering visitors’ questions, pruning roses, mulching, and planting.
Riley County Fair – Dan Brown
Description: Organize staffing of table at the fair July 27-31 (answer questions, help with interactive activities, etc.).
Farmers Market – Wanda Good
Description: Organize booth displays/themes and staffing of booth May through August.
Publicity/Neighbors Magazine – Gloria Holcombe
Description: Identify ways to increase awareness of the EMG program through Facebook posts, photos in The Mercury, etc. The editor of the Neighbors magazine asked EMGs to submit articles. The magazine is produced monthly and distributed in and around Manhattan. The committee compiles a timely topic list and solicits writers. Gregg reviews the articles. Joan Wasser often provides photographs. The author and photographer receive credit in the magazine. Would like to submit articles at least quarterly. More often if we have content.
Annual Projects
Parades – Carol VanNahmen
Description: Riley County EMGs participate in one local parade each year. Usually order spring bulbs to distribute along parade route.
Bioplastics – Lorraine Malone Willich and Tracy Laue
Description: This educational project is aimed at making mid-school students more aware of the urgent need for the recycling of petroleum-based plastic materials and of the potential utilization of bioplastics as a replacement for some non-recyclable plastics. Each student makes a bioplastic "Gummy Bear" by preparing a mixture of corn starch and vegetable oil using a recipe and transferring the mixture to a mold prior to heating in a microwave.
Other Project Requests
Riley County Properties
4-H School Gardens
4-H Horticultural Judging
Youth program at the Library
Lawnmower Clinic
