We were able to build teams of county Extension agents and cooperative, supportive experts in 40 of our 67 counties. Unless you have a group of agents ready to implement any program you produce, you'll have to entice them to use your Toolkit. The plastic box, enormous signs, color labels, and nifty notebook were highly desired and quickly disappeared. Even before they knew what was inside, workshop participants wanted a toolkit. The extra cost for producing materials in color with printing sticky labels was a necessary expense.
Agents are busy people with many fancy packages and kits to choose from.
One that is designed to draw attention, is remembered when the need arises, and is easily retrieved from the closet is worth the investment. Cost Our direct costs for producing 150 toolkits and training 140 field staff in three workshops in 1999 are listed in Table 1. Partners provided in-kind resources for their staff. Time, of course, is a cost as well. For current, complex issues and for problems that have different solutions across the state, a set of multiple, flexible resources may be the only reasonable way for specialists to adequately provide agents with helpful program tools.