Raising Maine

By PATRICIA McCARTHY, Raising Maine Contributor

Growing up in New Hampshire, Kathy Savoie knew exactly what she wanted to do when she grew up. Unlike most of us, she never lost sight of her childhood goal – and she now happily does that very job.

She’s an educator for the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, which, in a nutshell, provides opportunities for lifelong learning about everything from small-business development to beekeeping.

Savoie was involved with 4-H as a child. Hers was a general club, where she enthusiastically embraced cooking and arts and crafts. In college, she had an internship with the Cooperative Extension and says “it just felt like home.”

So after racking up degrees - she has a bachelor’s in nutrition and a master’s in public health nutrition and is a registered dietitian - she followed her heart. Her full-time Cooperative Extension job for the past 13 years has had its share of morphing, to better meet needs and times. Savoie now focuses a lot of her energy on canning, freezing and drying foods for winter storage. She creates and runs workshops around the state and for the past two years has offered the intensive Master Food Preserver Program, which trains participants to volunteer as program teachers in their own communities.

Savoie recently discussed her job and how she balances it with motherhood:

RAISING MAINE: What does an Extension educator do?
SAVOIE: We do something different every day, it seems. My program area is basically summed up as food and nutrition. We conduct community programs to help people learn about things like food quality, preservation, how to use local foods and general nutrition.

RAISING MAINE: Do you do a lot of traveling?
SAVOIE: Well, I bought a car in March with zero miles and now have 18,000 miles on it!

RAISING MAINE: What kind of hours do you keep? Are there a lot of evening/weekend workshops?
SAVOIE: My hours are very variable and flexible. I have office hours in Portland, but my schedule changes every week. I have a laptop, so I do some work at home. Yes, I work a lot of evenings and weekends.

RAISING MAINE: How do you juggle work and raising kids, especially with not having regular hours?
SAVOIE: It’s a lot of juggling. With the kids back in school, there’s more structure and repetition and less chaos.

RAISING MAINE: Who cares for your kids when you’re working and they’re home?
SAVOIE: In the summer, I have a 14-year-old and a 13-year-old who stay home and watch my younger son. And I have the good fortune of having my parents around the corner, so that’s great. And we have a great community to raise kids in. When they were younger, I had home-based daycare.

RAISING MAINE: How much do your kids understand about what you do for work?
SAVOIE: Quite a bit! Canning workshops, for example, have a lot of a supplies and a lot of equipment. So it’s all around them. They’re used to riding in the car with a pressure cooker on their lap. And, they’ve come to a lot of fun community events with me over the years.

RAISING MAINE: It must be nice to be able to involve them.
SAVOIE: It is. They like it. They’ve had a lot of opportunities because of my being involved with the Extension. My son, who is 7, caught a pig at a pig scramble and is planning a pig roast, so he gets all of it. One of my daughters has goats.

RAISING MAINE: How healthy do you eat at your house?
SAVOIE: Pretty healthy. Last night’s dinner was grilled steak, raised locally, Swiss chard and tossed salad from the garden, and melon from the Farmers’ Market. And the kids were fighting over the Swiss chard. They’ve grown up on good food.

RAISING MAINE: Have any junk food in your cupboards?
SAVOIE: Yeah, we do. For a long time, we were better. But then there was (7-year-old son) Eli! He would be the poster child for Lay’s potato chips if we let him. So we do have it sometimes. It’s tough raising kids with so many food choices out there beyond the kitchen walls.

RAISING MAINE: How do you reach people, as far as getting them to understand the benefits of healthy eating?
SAVOIE: A powerful way to induce change is to look at policy. Another angle is helping people to understand that small steps can make a difference.

RAISING MAINE: What kind of policy changes can happen that would encourage healthy eating?
SAVOIE: Well, the Portland schools food director, Ron Adams, got a grant to look at ways to get local foods into the schools. Any change like that is a good change. Getting local strawberries and rhubarb served as a snack in school may sound small, but it’s a great step. And Karen Baldacci (Gov. John Baldacci’s wife) and I have sent an invitation to Michelle Obama, asking what they’re planning to do with vegetables from their White House garden. We’ve offered to go there and teach them how to preserve vegetables.

RAISING MAINE: Great idea. How did that come about?
SAVOIE: Karen and I have done a number of things together and we were talking about how a lot of people reconnected with vegetable gardening recently, with the economy as it is, and how the White House garden just reinforced that. Canning and freezing is the next logical step. So we’ll see what comes of that. It’ll be exciting. There’s been a resurgence in people kind of homesteading and asking “How can I do it myself?” The Cooperative Extension is the go-to place for those kinds of experiential learning opportunities.

RAISING MAINE: Are there other adventures you’re involved in?
SAVOIE: I spend quite a bit of time with and provide technical assistance for the Eat Well Program for low-income families, children and seniors. I write articles for a statewide newsletter too for Eat Well clients to help them continue to learn about good nutrition and how to stretch food dollars.

RAISING MAINE: What lessons do you think your kids have learned from watching what you do?
SAVOIE: I can tell you that my kids know how to cook. I cook from scratch, and they know what good food looks like and where it comes from. They’re connected with their food, and that’s important because it leads to better nutrition and well-being overall.

RAISING MAINE: Any advice you can offer for other moms trying to work full- time and raise kids?
SAVOIE: It’s really important to have a good support system – a good husband, relatives and good neighbors. Enjoy the simple moments with your kids – time passes too quickly.

RAISING MAINE: How would you say you’re doing on balancing all?
SAVOIE: I’d say I’ve often felt like I’m trying to stay one step ahead of the train. I don’t feel like the train anymore – I feel like the tracks. But you just dig in and do the next thing that needs your attention. I feel fortunate to have the job I have and I’m happy where I am. I’m comfortable and content.