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 Glenn
to Receive National 4-H DOT Award March 2 in Washington D.C.
Auburn, Feb. 9,
2004---Debra
Glenn of Tuscaloosa County will be awarded a national Excellence in
Extended Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP) 4-H DOT (Diet’s
Our Thing) award March 2 in Washington, D.C. She is one of 24 winners
to be honored as EFNEP celebrates its 35th anniversary at
the
Dirkson
Senate Office Building.
A former 4-H DOT
student of retired Jefferson County Agent Helen T. Wilson, Glenn was
selected as the national winner in the “Youth Participation/Now a
Successful Business Person” category.
“We are excited
that Mrs. Glenn is a national winner representing Alabama EFNEP,” said
Barbara Mobley, EFNEP coordinator and program specialist with the
Alabama Cooperative Extension System. “Glenn was selected from
several hundred applicants from across the country, and the quality of
her outstanding leadership development speaks well for the quality of
our Alabama
program.”
Glenn is a
community activist who credits much of her success in life to the
inspiration and educational instruction she received from Wilson.
Glenn was inspired
by attending the EFNEP 4-H DOT.weekly meetings conducted in the
Birmingham housing project where she grew up.
“Mrs. Wilson was
one of the catalysts God provided to inspire me,” Glenn said. “Every
week, she taught us how to make some simple, affordable and
nutritional recipes. that I’d take home and prepare for my mother and
brothers.”
Those classes
opened the door to a lifetime of self-mastery and empowerment. Glenn
said they showed her that she had potential and could serve in a
leadership role. Eventually, Glenn was entrusted with teaching 4-H
DOT to Junior Scouts and Brownies when Wilson was away.
Glenn’s sense of
empowerment grew stronger through high school and college, and with it
came a feeling of gratitude and a desire to help and inspire others.
After graduating
from the
University
of Alabama at Birmingham with a degree in elementary education, Glenn
started her career serving others. She served as a day care center
operator, a counselor of juvenile delinquents and a cottage counselor
at a children’s home.
Glenn currently
serves as a supervisory medical administrative specialist with the
Birmingham Veterans Administration Medical Center, where she
supervises 37 employees.
Community service
is still a major part of Glenn’s life. In addition to her regular
job, she works as a counselor at the Tuscaloosa County Youth Detention
Center; as a volunteer with the Children’s Hospital; as a big sister
and mentor to girls from backgrounds similar to her own; as a chaplain
for Heart Matters; a ministry providing services to pregnant and
parenting teens; and as copastor of Saint Paul Baptist Church, just to
name a few.
Glenn also has
been an inspiration for the Alabama Cooperative Extension System,
sharing her story at the 2002 National Extension Family and Consumer
Sciences annual meeting and serving as the keynote speaker of the 2002
Alabama Cooperative Extension Nutrition Education Program annual
conference.
EFNEP is designed
to help families and youth with limited resources improve their
health, productivity and self-esteem through better diets, food
budgeting techniques and physical activity. Funded by the USDA’s
Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service through
each state’s land grant universities, EFNEP has reached more than 26
million families and youth since it’s inception in 1969.
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