Cultivating Wellness
Join Penn State Extension Educators in a variety of programs that address various dimensions of wellness.
Food, Cooking, and Nutrition
- The "Let's Preserve" fact sheets provide detailed methods for processing fruits, vegetables, and meats. Penn State Extension offers the latest research to ensure safe, quality products. Learn the details of how to can, freeze, and dry food, plus tips for success and troubleshooting. Also available in Spanish.Â
A Journey to a Healthier Heart
- Join our 12 Week Heart Healthy Journey to receive weekly emails that include meal planning tips, benefits of keeping a food journal, information about heart-healthy food choices, and how to help reduce blood pressure and manage your cholesterol.
- Let's Cook classes focus on easy-to-prepare, healthy, and delicious recipes for cooks of all skill levels. By providing shopping tips, meal preparation techniques, and tasty recipes, we want to help you navigate around the kitchen with confidence. Whether you are just starting your journey to a healthier lifestyle or have been following a healthy routine for some time, experience the satisfaction of preparing a delicious and nutritious meal.
The Volumetrics Weigh of Life: Weight Management Plan
-
Join us for The Volumetrics Weigh of Life: Weight Management Plan, a six-session virtual series designed to empower you with practical strategies for achieving and maintaining your weight goals. It's a scientifically backed approach for managing your weight while eating satisfying and nutritious foods.
Physical Activity
-
Everybody Walk Across Pennsylvania is a free, eight-week virtual walking program held each spring and fall. Walk at a time and place that is convenient for you!
LIFT
8-week classes
12-week classes
- LIFT (Lifelong Improvements through Fitness Together) is an in-person, group-based strength-training program for adults aged 40+. Get motivated, energized, and inspired while boosting strength, flexibility, and vitality! LIFT's group training helps build confidence and improve your body and overall well-being.
-
Walk by Faith is a community-focused walking initiative designed to promote healthy eating and physical activity while raising awareness about lifestyle changes that can reduce cancer risk. Organizations interested in implementing the Walk by Faith curriculum in collaboration with Penn State Extension are invited to sign up for this six-hour training session.
-
Vectors like ticks and mosquitoes can feel unavoidable as we try to enjoy the outdoors. This series focuses on protecting yourself from vectors, understanding those vectors, and reacting to problems with those vectors.
Mental Health
Communicating with Farmers Under Stress
-
This webinar will help ag professionals recognize the signs of stress and how to communicate with and respond to farmers and their family members when they need assistance.
-
Increase your comfort level in offering initial support to an adult experiencing a mental health challenge or substance misuse problem and connect them with appropriate resources.
- The Mental Wellness monthly webinar series offers practical tools and strategies to help individuals manage stress, strengthen resilience, and improve overall mental health. Each session focuses on everyday skills that promote well-being, encourage positive coping, and support healthier relationships at home, work, and in the community.
Question, Persuade, Refer (QPR) Suicide Prevention Training
- This 2-hour training is designed for all people concerned about helping others with mental health and substance use challenges, regardless of their background. QPR is an emergency mental health intervention for people considering suicide. Participants will learn skills to identify and interrupt a crisis and direct someone to proper care.
Financial Wellness
Financial Wellness and Literacy Series
- A variety of webinars addressing financial wellness and literacy for all age groups, including youth. Topics include avoiding identity theft and scams, setting money goals, budgeting, and credit cards.
Smart Choice Health Insurance Basics
- Gain insight into health insurance and select a plan that aligns with your healthcare needs and budget through effective strategies and informed decision-making.
Gardening Resources
Dig Into Gardening Webinar Series
- Come learn like a Master Gardener! This six-part webinar series offers a sneak peek into the Penn State Extension Master Gardener basic training curriculum and its most critical topics.Â
- Our standard soil fertility test is designed as a soil-management tool for farmers, home and community gardeners, landscape contractors, golf-course superintendents, ornamental nurserymen and others interested in the fertility of their soil and in determining the optimum lime and fertilizer requirements of their plants.
- Tips for gardening on patios, balconies, and other small areas.
Designing the Home Garden for Drought Resilience
- Explore plants and garden design practices to establish a drought-tolerant garden in the home landscape.
Incorporate Pennsylvania Native Perennial Plants into the GardenÂ
- See the benefits of incorporating Pennsylvania native perennial plants into home gardens, offering guidance on selection, planting, and care, along with a list of recommended species.
- This article covers the importance of pruning, outlines key pruning techniques, and provides recommendations on when to prune according to whether shrubs flower in spring or summer.
- Container gardening might seem like a secret art, but following a few key principles can help you extend your garden space with productive containerized vegetable plants.
- Herbs make a great addition to a garden, but they can also be grown indoors as year-round houseplants or just during the winter months to protect tender herbs such as rosemary or basil.
Additional Resource
Creating a Healthier Life: A Step-by-Step Guide to Wellness (from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration)
