Charlene Roy
Program Aide II
Cooperative Extension
Charlene Roy began working for the University of Maine Cooperative Extension in November of 1982 as a Nutrition Aide for the Expanded Food Nutrition Education Program, known as EFNEP. In her role, Charlene visited low-income households to teach families, primarily mothers, how to feed themselves and their children so that they might avoid diet-related chronic diseases and to look and feel their best. Charlene also provided needed information on how to cook from scratch, how to plan a trip to the grocery store, how to balance a food budget, and how to prepare a nutritious meal using government surplus foods. Kitchen and food safety were always topics Charlene found necessary to repeat with the families whose homes she visited. While serving in her role of Nutrition Aide, Charlene provided services to an estimated 1,000 families in the upper St. John Valley over the course of her 25 years with Cooperative Extension. It would be impossible to calculate the numbers of school-age children who learned about nutrition and healthy eating habits, from the “basic 4 food groups” through the “Food Guide Pyramid” up to “Mypyramid”. To say that Charlene has “seen a lot” in the homes of her clients would be an understatement. Ask her about the time a client’s stove caught on fire! Ask her about the home where the baby and the cat were both eating from the same dish at the same time.
As a home visitor, Charlene has witnessed first-hand the changes in the typical Maine household. As more families found themselves in the workforce, reliance on convenience foods and fast foods gradually replaced the home-cooked “3 squares”. Family mealtimes have become more the exception than the norm, and knowledge of where foods come from is often lost upon the youth of today, who believe eggs really do come from a cardboard box. Charlene often provided basic kitchen items, once standard in all kitchens, to families in order to teach a cooking lesson. These items might be a pot holder, a cookie sheet, a bread pan, spatula or a measuring cup. It was not unusual for Charlene to take items from her own kitchen to donate to homes where the items were needed. She felt it was a small price to help a family learn to cook, and to have the tools necessary to be successful. For Charlene, a client’s success was what her work was all about.
Charlene retired from the University of Maine Cooperative Extension in June of 2007 and has retired “to the lake”. Although her laughter and positive attitude linger, she will be missed by all who worked with her.