Three long-time FACS Extension agents have been recognized with some of the University of Georgia’s highest honors this year.

Deborah Purvis (BSHE ’76, Furnishings and Interiors) has been named the Walter B. Hill Distinguished Service Fellow, UGA’s highest award in public service and outreach.

Purvis, a FACS Extension agent in Colquitt County for 30 years, was recognized for developing, testing and implementing a variety of innovative programs in nutrition, food safety, financial education, housing and other areas that have become national models for serving the needs of low-income families.

“Mrs. Purvis understands the impact poverty has on nutrition, lifestyle, mental wellness, and in turn how those problems can affect a whole community,” wrote Cynthia Hernandez, director of the Ellenton Clinic.

After recognizing the special needs of the county’s growing Latino population, Purvis worked collaboratively with other community organizations to meet those needs. She worked with the Ellenton Clinic to offer healthcare programs for farm workers and their families at farm work camps.

Purvis also developed home ownership workshops for Hispanic families, established a parent training program at a Head Start center, and has worked with the local school system to enhance the learning environment for economically and socially at-risk students.

She has had a key role in development of the UGA Archway Partnership Project, which is a pilot program that gives a community access to a broad range of expertise at the university. She has served on the Archway Executive Committee, participated in needs assessments for the county, and organized simulations to raise awareness of the effects of poverty on individuals and the community.

Purvis has won top awards for her work, including the 2002 Walter B. Hill Award for Distinguished Achievement in Public Service and Outreach, the 2004 D.W. Brooks Award for Excellence in Public Service Extension, and the 2004 Educator of the Year Award from the National Extension Association of Family and Consumer Sciences.

Sandra McKinney (BSHE ’76, Home Economics Education; MEd ’82, Home Economics Education) received the D.W. Brooks Faculty Award for Excellence in Public Service Extension in October 2006 from the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

McKinney, who serves as the Extension coordinator for Crisp County, was recognized particularly for her work with young people. Under her direction, the Crisp County 4-H group was one of five internationally to receive the Albert Schweitzer International Youth Group of the Year Award for their environmental work in waste management, beautification and education. She also developed the “Survive and Thrive in the World of Work” program for youth in rural counties, “Taking the Sting Out of the Mosquito Threat,” and the “Down Syndrome Support” program, all of which have received national recognition.

Joanne Cavis, the Extension coordinator and a FACS agent for Muscogee County, is one of five UGA faculty members to receive a Hill Award for Distinguished Achievement in University Public Service and Outreach.

Cavis has spent the past 26 years educating the residents of Muscogee County on issues of child development, child abuse and neglect, parenting education, childcare-provider training and financial literacy.

Purvis and Cavis received their awards in February.

A $1.9 million grant awarded to the College of Family and Consumer Sciences will ensure that citizens who use natural gas will receive information to make them more informed consumers.

“This grant, funded by Atlanta Gas Light Company and in cooperation with the Georgia Public Service Commission, will allow us to hire at least 10 educators throughout Georgia to provide face-to-face energy education to AGL customers,” according to Jorge Atiles, principal investigator and FACS associate dean for outreach and Extension.

The four-year education program will include information on choosing a natural gas plan from those offered by gas marketers in the state; energy conservation; weatherization; and the “Home and Heartwarming” program, which provides weatherization services and natural gas equipment repair or replacement for qualified older and low-income Georgians who are on Atlanta Gas Light’s distribution system.

Despite widespread support by Congress for increasing the minimum wage from $5.15 per hour to $7.25 per hour, Joseph Sabia, a housing and consumer economics assistant professors, testified before the U.S. Senate Finance Committee in January that the plan won’t alleviate poverty, just as past minimum wage increases have not alleviated poverty.

“Minimum wage increases are useless at best and downright harmful at worst,” Sabia told the committee members. “They should be abandoned and put in the museum of antiquated antipoverty policies.”

Sabia discussed the findings of research he conducted with Richard Burkhauser of Cornell University that showed minimum wage increases had no effect on overall poverty rates, on poverty rates among workers, or on poverty rates of working single mothers between 1989 and 2004. The researchers used information from U.S. Census data for their study.

Instead, Sabia advocated that the senators enhance the Earned Income Tax Credit, which provides tax credits to workers in poor families. Currently, a minimum wage worker from a low-income family with at least two children can gain a credit of 40 cents for every dollar in wages earned. Such employees have an effective wage of $7.21 per hour, according to Sabia.

Sabia told the senators that his research shows that a 10 percent increase in the maximum EITC refundable credit would reduce poverty rates by 7 percent among full-time employed single mothers.

James Hargrove (Associate Professor, Foods and Nutrition) and the Nutraceutical Research Lab have received a Georgia Center of Innovation Award from Gov. Sonny Perdue for its work on the nutraceutical value of the muscadine grape. The $60,000 grant, funded by the OneGeorgia Authority, will support development of a commercial production process for a concentrated liquid extract from muscadine grape pomace. In addition to Hargrove, other members of the research team are Diane Hartle and Phillip Greenspan, associate professors in the College of Pharmacy. The muscadine is being developed for its anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory properties and its action against cancer, aging, osteoarthritis and diabetes.