The Extension Foundation has released a new title. “Pumpkin Smash Playbook” shares how the University of Illinois Extension and community partners organize and host Pumpkin Smashes, fun community events that collect pumpkins for composting. The team hosted its first Pumpkin Smash in 2019. Since then, the organization has refined the process of planning, funding, and running Smashes. This playbook details how to organize a similar event in your community.

Smashes teach people about the importance of composting and help keep pumpkins out of landfills. But they also provide Extension organizations with an opportunity to increase Extension’s visibility and reach new communities, particularly in urban areas. 

“Pumpkin Smash Playbook” was written by Kathryn M. Pereira, an Extension educator with the University of Illinois Extension. It’s the latest publication released by the Extension Foundation for the Cooperative Extension Service. It was made possible with funding from the New Technologies for Ag Extension (NTAE) grant program.

The Extension Foundation has recently added new titles to its library, including the New Technologies for Ag Extension 2022-2023 Yearbook. The 83-page Yearbook – presented in a lively magazine format – documents dozens of projects funded through the New Technologies for Ag Extension (NTAE) program, a cooperative agreement between USDA NIFA, Oklahoma State University, and the Extension Foundation. The goal of the New Technologies for Ag Extension (NTAE) grant is to incubate, accelerate, and expand promising work that will increase the impact of the Cooperative Extension System (CES) in the communities it serves, and provide models that can be adopted or adapted by Extension teams across the nation.

You can find the entire library of publications here.