Missouri
This month's 4-H Save Your Brain Ambassadors' meeting provided training to eight 4-H Save Your Brain Ambassadors who championed destigmatizing mental health in their schools and communities. Ambassadors assisted with 4-H Clown College. Additionally, 4-H Save Your Brain Ambassadors worked to install stress relieving "Take 5 Stations" throughout their schools. Teens sought donations/raised funds to purchase coloring books, stress balls, headphones, and tech to listen to guided meditations, cards with coping strategies, etc. The teens also solicited support of administrators and school boards at Summersville, Eminence, and Mountain View/Birch Tree school districts to install "Take 5 Stations" in the cafeteria, library, outside the counselor's office, and/or other areas in their schools. Overall goal is to help students access stress-relieving tools in between classes, while waiting to visit with the guidance counselor/school psychologist, and during lunch breaks.
Submitted by: Karen Funkenbusch, Emily Doosing, Susan Jaster, and Willard Downs
Lincoln University Innovative Small Farmers' Outreach Program staff Maurice Theriot, Susan Jaster, Penny Wilson, Haze Gaddie, and Mary Keeter presented at a
train-the-trainer small-scale farming and gardening program in St. Louis, MO, on April 19th and 20th for 95 minority beginner farmers. Topics included: "everyone can have a green thumb"; tool ergonomics, selection, and maintenance; accessible container gardening; and square foot gardening. Participants also received 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline Missouri information and the Show-Me Strong Farm Families Farm and Ranch Stress bag of mental health resources.
ISFOP Farm Outreach Worker Izula Maximillen hosted a soil health workshop for 38 beginner farmers and farmer apprentices at Sankara Farm in Kansas City. LUCE's Dr. Tunsisa Hurisso presented on "Digging Deep: Uncover the Secrets of the Soil with Quantitative Measures" while ISFOP's Mary Keeter presented 
a hands-on session on the Jessup Wagon 2.0 giving demonstrations on tool ergonomics, tool selection and maintenance, and construction options for low tunnels.
Submitted by: Mary Keeter
Missouri AgrAbility partnered with the Brain Injury Association of Missouri (BIA-MO) to implement the "Brain Injury Fact of the Day" media campaign during March 2024 for Brain Injury Awareness Month. Website and social media ads were utilized to increase awareness of brain injury across rural Missouri. Visits to the BIA-MO website increased knowledge about Missouri AgrAbility as a resource for AgrAbility clients.
Missouri AgrAbility featured two brain injury-related sessions at the NTW. Staff partnered with internationally known researcher Dr. Brick Johnstone for a session on "Improving Vocational Outcomes for Persons with TBI." Missouri AgrAbility Project Director Karen Funkenbusch had partnered with Dr. Johnstone on previous research related to brain injury and vocational outcomes. The Missouri AgrAbility collaborative research has expanded to a continued focus of vocational outcomes for persons with brain injury at Shepherds Center in Atlanta, GA.
Marketing of Missouri AgrAbility continued at the BIA-MO Survivor and Family Seminars in southwest (March 23) and western Missouri (April 20). Nearly 150 AgrAbility clients became aware of assistance available through the Missouri AgrAbility and BIA-MO partnership. Missouri AgrAbility was featured in promotional material, the printed event program, signage, and during the seminar welcome.
Staff exhibited at the KeeleyLife Health Fair on April 24 and raised awareness among construction workers, many of whom are veterans, about Missouri AgrAbility. Stress in farming was discussed as well as the prevention of brain injury and other injuries in construction, military and agriculture professions. Approximately 100 AgrAbility clients participated in the KeeleyLife Health Fair.
Submitted by Maureen Cunningham