CCE Cayuga Team Recognized for Youth Workforce Program

A unique workforce development program, staffed and managed by Cornell Cooperative Extension Cayuga County, has received the 2025 Distinguished Team Award from Epsilon Sigma Phi, Lamba Chapter. The award recognizes professional excellence in Cooperative Extension programs.

Based in one of the largest milk producing counties in New York State, Cornell Cooperative Extension Cayuga County (CCE Cayuga) was tapped in 2022 to run the iconic Milk Bar at the New York State Fair in nearby Syracuse. With input from Cornell University Cooperative Extension, the team reimagined this popular Fair attraction as a youth workforce training program. Funded by the New York State Dept. of Agriculture & Markets, the Milk Bar now provides marketable first-job experience for Central New York teens while introducing them to New York State’s important dairy industry through classroom study and visits to dairy farms and processing facilities.

In 2025, forty-three teens ranging in age from 14-to-19 were recruited primarily from Cayuga and Onondaga Counties, to sell and serve more than 285,000 cups of cold refreshing milk to fairgoers. For most, working at the Milk Bar had been their first job experience. Supervisors Heather Ward of CCE Cayuga and Jacob Maslyn of CCE Ontario provided the teens with pre-Fair training that included basic application steps, team building and customer service skills, and general workplace expectations. Three days of field trips to dairy farms, sheep dairies, and to Cornell AgriTech in Geneva exposed them to many different career pathways and opportunities that involve milk processing, farming, and food research and also equipped them to share information they had learned with their Milk Bar customers.

Of the teens on staff in 2025, 25 had returned for a second year in more senior leadership positions such as cashier, food handling and stocking, or as trainers. By the Fair’s end, many of the teens expressed interest in returning for a 2nd or 3rd year in 2026. CCE Cayuga again will staff and manage the Milk Bar for the 2026 Great New York State Fair.

The 2025 Distinguished Team Award from Epsilon Sigma Phi, Lamba Chapter recognizes the NYS State Fair Milk Bar Team’s work, as having “exemplified the spirit of Cooperative Extension—addressing critical issues through collaboration, innovation, and education.“ Team members Dan Welch, Executive Director of Cornell Cooperative Extension Cayuga County; Victoria Giarratano, Assistant Director of CCE Administration, Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development; Heather Ward, Taste NY Market Manager (CCE Cayuga County), and Jacob Maslyn, Agricultural Economic Development Educator (CCE Ontario County) were acknowledged “for their ongoing work to develop and implement a sustainable model that reestablished the Milk Bar as a cornerstone of agricultural education and community engagement and reimagined it as a comprehensive youth workforce development project.”

The New York Lambda Chapter of Epsilon Sigma Phi is part of a nationwide network of professional development organizations serving Cooperative Extension. Based at Cornell University, the chapter serves extension professionals in this region. Learn more at: https://portal.espnational.org/.

To learn more about CCE Cayuga, visit: https://ccecayuga.org/. Find Cornell Cooperative Extension online at: https://cals.cornell.edu/cornell-cooperative-extension.