Faith Peterson
Adams County Master Gardener

The Penn State Master Gardeners of Adams County recently awarded Service Pins and Charms to Master Gardeners for achieving goals of volunteer hours, and for years of service. Service Pins were awarded to Marann Jones for 10 years, while Bill Devlin received a 15 year pin.

Master Gardeners help to educate Adams County residents with Penn State research based information and technology to assist them with their flower and vegetable gardens, their lawns, trees and many other areas of gardening. Following an intensive 15-week training, each new MG is required to volunteer for 50 hours during their first year as an MG. In subsequent years, the requirements are a minimum of 20 volunteer hours, plus 10 hours of advanced training. Activities that count for volunteer hours include writing the weekly newspaper articles, assisting gardeners with questions through our Garden Hotline which is available Monday and Friday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. from April through September, giving presentations to various groups in the County, and conducting several class series throughout the year.

Here are some interesting statistics for the Adams County Master Gardener program for 2015. We have 50 active Master Gardeners, and 7 trainees. The Master Gardeners gave a total of 2,658 volunteer hours in 2015, and served 771 community youth. Total direct contacts through all the programs were 3,280. Twenty presentations were given during 2015, and we started a new Poison Prevention program (Mr. Yuk) for school children in the Gettysburg area. People access our compiled archive of newspaper articles at www.emmitsburg.net, and we had 47,000 ‘hits’ per month during 2015!

Those who received Charms for completing volunteer hours during fiscal year 2015 are: 100 Hours – Michelle Farrell, Kim Kleppinger, and Marlene Spinosa. For 200 hours – Melissa Metcalf; 300 hour winners are John Hecker, Marann Jones, Debbie Prior and Dick Colehouse. 400 hours – Carolyn Black; 500 hours - Barb Mrgich and Bobbi Little; 1000 hours – Sue Bucher, Shirley Lindsey and Phil Peters; 1500 hours – Faith Peterson; 2000 hours – Audrey Hillman, and over 2500 hours - Martie Young.

Our 2015 Master Gardener trainees are Don Faust, Don Zigler, Dan Rathert, Melisa Jacoby, Pam Haze and Kim Schubert. And congratulations to Christina Hitz for completing her training and first year of volunteer service.

Training for the fall/winter, 2015-16 year begins August 10, 2016. For more information on the Penn state Master Gardener program or to receive an application for the classes, contact our office at 717-334-6271 or email Mary Ann Ryan, 717-334-6271 ext. 319.