The Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE), located on Old Country Road in Plainview, has been providing services to residents of Nassau County for over 85 years and is now facing elimination if not included in the 2001 Nassau County Budget.

CCE is an educational, not-for-profit agency serving Nassau County residents. It provides programs and research-based information on horticulture and environmental topics, food and nutrition, consumer issues, parenting and youth development to improve community vitality. Volunteers help to make the programs more effective by reaching larger numbers.

Cornell University is the Land Grant University of New York as each state has a different university. Their mission is to bring the research and resources of the university to the people of the county. "We have direct access to Cornell research and resources and we aim to distribute that," said Alicia Martinez, extension educator for CCE. "In the past, everything was free of charge and our mission was just to get the information out to people, but now it has been harder and harder to do this."

As the 2001 Nassau County Budget is being proposed, many programs, including Cornell Cooperative Extension, (CCE) will be eliminated and/or reduced. CCE is joining with the "Fight for Families" Coalition of over 100 groups to encourage taxpayers who support human services programs to let County legislators know of this support.

The roots of CCE are agricultural. Eighty-five-years ago, Nassau County had a population of less than 200,000 people, according to research done by the CCE. There were over 700 farms in the county with an average size of 50 to 60 acres per farm. Nassau County's economy was heavily dependent on the production of vegetable crops and poultry. In 2000, there is a population of nearly 1.3 million people living in 440,000 households and there are fewer than 150 acres of land in agricultural production in Nassau.

Although the roots were agricultural, there has been a change of focus since the inception. The Cooperative Extension's primary programming issues now are related to environmental enhancement, children, youth and families and home and individual well being.

One program that CCE has been working on is Grandparents as Care Givers. Martinez recently worked closely with Lenore Sylvan, chairperson for the Jericho-Syosset-Woodbury Child Care Partnership on bringing this program to the area.

This program, which is only one of many offered by CCE, helps give the guidance that grandparents need to be care givers to their grandchildren.

Budget cuts have temporarily halted the project, but Sylvan hopes to meet with Martinez and discuss ways of starting the program again.

Some of CCE's other programs include Programs for Parents with workshops such as Winning Ways to Talk With Kids, Helping Your Child Just Say No, Talking with Kids about Puberty and Healthy Heart Snack Choices. There are also Home Gardening Classes including Butterflies and Butterfly Gardening, Bulbs, and Fall Gardening Activities.3.

CCE urges residents to contact Nassau County Executive Thomas Gulotta as well as local elected officials and tell them the need for and uses of Cornell Cooperative Extension programs.