Family, community, and self-care are areas that Alyshia Victoria, who was recently hired as an Extension Agent in Union County, voices as focuses of importance in her life and in the county. Alyshia began work at the extension office shortly after the New Year and has been hastily working towards training and educating herself in a wide array of activities and programs in order to best serve the community.

Although she is a new employee, that doesn’t sell her short on knowledge and community growth goals that she brings to the plate. Alyshia grew up in Anderson County and now resides with her family, husband Jose Victoria and two sons, in Corryton. She is greatly involved in family activities and constantly yearns to learn. Her family life is active in hiking, camping, reading, traveling, and exploring new places like area farmers markets, libraries, museums, parks and zoos which all promote community and family life balance which is important to her.

Nearly ten years ago, Alyshia met Jose at Berea College where they are both Alumni. They spent a considerable amount of time together on campus organizing activities and serving in leadership roles. After graduation, they decided to move to East Tennessee and begin their family. Alyshia strongly feels that it is important to find the balance between providing for your family and giving yourself the self-care and attention that you need in order to continue to do well for others. She says, “I used to feel that my career and making a lot of money was the most important thing to me, but after becoming a mom, the importance of family really became more evident. I also know that being a mom is hard and that any support I can give to other families is a very important and rewarding work.” She continually strives to raise her children in a way that they can be taught by example how to be good to people, work hard, and live healthy.

The Victoria family is a small unit that relies on faith and hard work. Now that she has started her own family, she considers her immediate family to be herself, her spouse, and her children. Anyone who is supportive of them and wants to be a part of their lives, in her opinion, is a part of the extended family. She has hopes of building new relationships and growing that family here in Union County.

Growing up in Clinton, Alyshia was heavily involved in FFA and the School Board there as a student. She was raised by a single parent all through high school but was very fortunate to have friends and role models who encouraged her to be a part of afterschool clubs like FFA, where she could make good use of time. Because of the leadership skills that she established there, she became very active in student government and served as the student representative from Clinton High School on the Anderson County School Board. That created opportunities for her to become interested in the very things that led her to becoming an Extension Agent today.

This is when her career as a student at Berea College, a work based institution with strong Christian values, began. She worked her way through school on scholarship and graduated with a degree in Child and Family Studies with a concentration in Nutrition. Because of her strong FFA and agriculture foundations, she chose to obtain a minor in Agriculture. During her time at Berea, she was fortunate to work on internships with the FDA doing nutrigenomic obesity studies in the Delta region, and also an internship working on an heirloom farm in Kentucky. She was a teaching assistant for food and nutrition programs and became more acclimated to the Appalachian region and traditions through coursework and research.

She brings many special skills to her new career. She is bilingual in Spanish and is familiar with the culture and customs. She is a Certified Lactation Counselor and is able to give support with breastfeeding. She grew up with her grandmother teaching her how to can and preserve foods, crochet, knit, quilt, sew, and garden. She says with a grin, “I do pretty well at most of those things other than gardening.” Recently she became a Certified Instructor in Tai Chi for Arthritis, Tai Chi for Falls Prevention, and Seated Tai Chi.

Alyshia’s personal motto is “Improving oneself to improve the rest.” She feels strongly that she cannot affect change without evaluating herself and how she can continually improve and learn. She has a goal oriented mindset and carries through on setting personal and professional goals for herself to strive for. This year, personally she would like to finish unpacking boxes and make her home more of a presentable place where she feels comfortable having people over. Long term goals include completing her master’s degree and making the East TN community one in which she feels she has created a home for her own family as an adult. As far as professional goals, in the short term she would like to learn as much as she can about the community so that she can contribute as much as possible. Collaboration between herself and the community is her ultimate goal. Over the next 10+ years, she wants to create a professional home in a job that she is proud of, that works in and serves the community directly all the while continuing to build her own skills and education.

As the Family and Consumer Science/4-H Extension Agent for Union County there are so many areas where the community should expect to see growth led by Alyshia’s programs over the next several years. Prior to Extension, Alyshia worked for the Knox County WIC program for five years as a nutrition educator and lactation counselor. Academically, she meets all the degree requirements needed to become an Extension Agent, but her additional work experience and variety of life experience in this type of community based education helps her feel that she can do the job and contribute to the county in a positive manor. The combination of education, growing up here in East TN, and her personal interests make her a great fit for Extension and Union County. She says, “I have lots to learn and lots to contribute.”

There is a huge variety of programs that can be offered by Extension, and those programs will be determined based on the needs of the community. Those needs will be determined based on community partnership feedback and analyzation of data and could range from Co-parenting Apart classes and Tai Chi to 4-H Sewing Project Groups and Judging Teams or even programs with the TN SNAP education grants to increase healthy eating and physical activities for families. Alyshia says she works best in collaboration with others, providing feedback to one another which is a perfect fit for a split Extension Agent.

She wanted to work in Extension for a long time. One benefit of doing lots of activity in high school is that she was able to go into college with a pretty good idea of what it was she wanted to do with her career. She knew she wanted to be in programming like the federal Women, Infant, Nutrition Program (WIC) or Extension where she could use knowledge regarding the application of nutrition and health recommendations to help families discover information and reach their goals. Extension programming is more community based, and she feels it is a better fit.

Even with her sights on a career in Extension, at one point, she was convinced that she was going to be a Chef. As she began to learn and work, she quickly discovered that she wanted to do more to serve communities. Choosing a career in Child and Family Studies allowed her to learn and apply information in a broad range of ways to include her interests of food and agriculture in learning with teaching communities how to live, eat, and play in ways that are satisfying and healthy.

As Alyshia settles and builds her home, family, and career in Union County, she finds her peace and happiness in the serenity of sounds of superhero battles being fought by her son and baby giggles while she prepares dinner for her family. Be sure to stop in the Extension office, have a chat over coffee, and get to know your new Family and Consumer Sciences/4-H Extension Agent, Alyshia Victoria.