Our blog writers are embarking on a quest to interview nutrition educators working for Cornell Cooperative Extension across New York State.
Each educator has a unique perspective on their work, and how their work has influenced their own life choices. Healthy eating and living is a shared goal of the blog, our writers, these educators, and the nutrition programs they represent. It is our hope that these interviews will inspire, motivate, and celebrate the benefits of healthy choices.
The educator spotlight interviews will appear roughly once a month. Enjoy reading!
Jordy Kivett first started working as a nutrition educator for Cornell Cooperative Extension’s (CCE) Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP) in March 2006. This year marks her 16th year working at Clinton county. As an educator, Jordy shares nutrition information and prepares recipes for her adult participants to enforce EFNEP’s mission of improving food security, food habits, food safety, and physical activity behavior.
How did you end up working for EFNEP?
In college, Jordy majored in English Literature, hoping to become a librarian. After graduating, she landed a job as a teacher for an adult literacy program that paved the way for her interest in nutrition education. She noticed that one of her students in their 50’s regularly struggled to complete a flight of stairs. Later Jordy learned that this student had diabetes and frequently drank soda. “Although basic literacy was critical, I was seeing how the lack of knowledge of their diet and health was impacting their ability to do anything else, and this could simply be solved by educating them,” Jordy says. Coming from a pretty health-conscious family herself, Jordy began taking an interest in educating adults to make better food choices, and that is how she joined the EFNEP team.
How do you plan and present your lesson?
Jordy’s approach to nutrition education is very collaborative and hands-on. She plans her lessons centered around the curriculum and individualizes them to cater to her participants’ resources. “If it’s summertime and the participant tells me that their neighbor dropped off zucchini last week and they don’t know what to do with it, I’ll bring them a couple of zucchini recipes.”
Before a class, Jordy prepares a cheat sheet of talking points so that she doesn’t miss any important point. There is so much information to share in one lesson, so making a cheat sheet has helped her memorize nutrition information, and over the years, this has helped her have all the information off the top of her head.
Jordy is always looking for different ways to strengthen her lessons, even during the COVID-19 pandemic when learning went virtual. For example, simply talking about the effects of added sugar in calcium-rich beverages during a live Facebook streaming becomes tedious for the participants. Instead, Jordy walks the audience through reading a food label of a bottle of chocolate almond milk. This way, her participants learn to identify beverages with high amounts of added sugar the next time they go grocery shopping. For another household that didn’t use dairy products, Jordy used a can of boneless salmon alongside other foods to demonstrate foods rich in calcium.
What are the challenges on the job?
Although a career in nutrition education can be rewarding, it is not without its challenges. Jordy notes the challenge of recruiting participants. Jordy and her co-worker, Kari Lamkins, have been working on their outreach in Clinton county by devising creative advertising strategies like putting a creative spin on their projects. Currently, Jordy is working with local schools on a project that educates parents and their remotely learning children on creative ways to prepare their foods using the free school lunch packages.
What are your hobbies?
Aside from work, Jordy enjoys cooking, and she believes this hobby also led to her interest in a career in nutrition education. A mother of two, Jordy loves spending time with her kids and gardening flowers and different vegetable snacks for her kids like carrots and cherry tomatoes. What she finds most fulfilling about cooking and gardening is seeing the outcomes, “you start with an ingredient, and you end up with a dish, the same thing with gardening like you started with a little plant and you get a flower or vegetable or whatever at the end.”
Even after graduating as an English major, Jordy still enjoys reading books. When she is not looking up nutrition-based information, you can find her diving into a fiction book. Jordy fancies taking long walks with her lovely dog.
What have you learned from your participants?
Jordy acknowledges the importance of learning from her participants. Over the years she has learned many ways her participants incorporate fruits and vegetables into their diets. Knowing this has equipped her with extra information and tips on helping her participants make good food choices and improve their meals. Jordy’s adaptability has also helped her devise lessons and solutions for participants in hard times. One challenge is learning to cook in a microwave. “For some participants, it can take months to find public housing, and all they could have with them is a microwave, so I work with them to help them still get nutritious meals.” Jordy concludes, “I become a stronger educator the more I know and talk to the participants.”
Author: Cecilia Msogoya
