Romanian Exchange Students
By Eric Marlowe
University of Georgia Extension
I’ve been an Extension Agent for a little over a year and a half now. The Cooperative Extension model in the United States has been in swing for over a hundred years. I guess that means I’m still new to all of this. While there are varying forms of educational support for those engaged in agriculture and horticulture related fields throughout the world, the Cooperative Extension system in the United States is unique in many ways.
An ongoing relationship exists between the country of Romania and the University of Georgia Cooperative Extension. Facilitated by the Romanian-American Foundation, a cohort of five Fulbright Scholars arrived in August of 2024. These scholars comprised the next wave of the Romanian Extension Education Development Program. The program’s mission is to build a sustainable model of outreach for the dissemination of education to communities in Romania. This program’s grounding in universities is something our two systems will have in common.
The scholars were here for four months. They toured all over the State of Georgia and beyond. Besides visiting the University of Georgia campus in Athens, Griffin, and Tifton and spending time with leaders of Extension and faculty members of the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences under which Extension is housed, they spent time visiting Extension Agents in a number of counties. We in Gwinnett were honored to host our Romanian guests for a day.
Given that we are an urbanizing environment for the most part in Gwinnett, this was an opportunity to showcase the diverse applications of Extension. A taste of Extension in a not-so-rural community.
We started the day at the Extension office here in Lawrenceville on the fourth floor above the tag office. Our guests were Doctors Igori Balta, assistant professor of Biotechnologies, and Stefan Batrina, assistant professor of Crop Sciences, both from the University of Life Sciences “King Michael I” from Timisoara. With them, Dr. Horia Ciocan, assistant professor in the department of Management & Rural Development at the University of Ag Sciences & Veterinary Medicine in Bucharest and Dr. Dragos Sǎcǎleanu, Lecturer of Applied Electronics & Information Engineering at the National University of Science and Technology Politehnica (Polytechnic) in Bucharest. And finally, Dr. Paula Moraru, associate professor of Technical & Soil Sciences at the University of Agriculture Sciences and Veterinary Medicine in Cluj-Napoca.
After a brief presentation on Gwinnett County and what makes us who we are, we set out to explore. Our first stop was the County Jail to see the Fresh Start Garden and learn about both the practical skills and the mental health obtained by inmates who work in the garden. Our guests were particularly excited about the visit. I like to think we showed them something they hadn’t seen on any of their other tours.
From there we set out to visit Peachtree Farm in Norcross. This is a working agricultural production on a mission to provide employment and training for adults with developmental disabilities. They have a green house, chickens, beehives, and assorted container grown herbs and ornamentals for sale at their yearly plant sale. We made it to Peachtree Farm and the tour was fantastic. Enroute to Peachtree Farm, we of course had to stop at a Romanian-American owned European grocery store. A friend had given Paula a tip. I was treated to some Romanian Chocolates and a coffee. No complaints.
We ended our tour at the Harvest Gwinnett community garden at Dacula Park. This is one of several inspiring initiatives within the county that offer leased garden boxes to local residents. Gardeners rub shoulders with other gardeners and the bulk of what is produced ends up donated to various food coops in the area. Some of the more active members of this community garden are Master Gardener Extension Volunteers. They gave our visiting scholars a tour of the facilities, regaled them with mementos to commemorate their visit, and sent them on their way in high spirits. I was proud to have been able to share just a glimpse of all that is going on in Gwinnett. I could not have done it without our Master Gardeners, who really are the lifeblood of our extension efforts in our county.
A tidbit that was fun for me to watch and I’m sure a delight for our guests was that at every stop on our tour except for one, they were able to speak with someone in Romanian. From the lunch ladies at the jail to the Harvest Gwinnett Coordinator who had been to Romania when in the Peace Corps to our office manager at the Extension office, there was someone who just happened to be either from Romania or fluent in Romanian everywhere we went. I could not have planned it better if I had planned it at all.
Eric Marlowe, County Extension Agent with UGA Extension Gwinnett County. He can be contacted at 678-377-4010 or emarlowe@uga.edu
