FCS Agent: Angela Hinkle Photo Source: UF/IFAS
Angela Hinkle is a Family and Consumer Sciences Agent in Escambia County, specializing in increasing the healthy food and nutrition behaviors of limited-resource families. She graduated from the University of Maryland in Broadcast Communications. After giving birth to a beautiful daughter, she worked for NC State on a grant helping moms breastfeed their new babies. She was offered additional duties from another grant – EFNEP (Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program). After the breastfeeding grant program ended, Angela re-located to Escambia County, Florida and was able to continue teaching efforts as a program assistant for the EFNEP program there.
As a single mom, Angela really appreciated the help of family, friends, and co-workers in advancing to the position of UF Extension Agent in 2008 and getting her master’s degree in Health Education (with a psycho-social emphasis) from the University of West Florida in 2010.
Along with her staff, Angela works with limited-resource youth and families, educating them in choosing, preparing, and eating healthy when budgets are severely restricted. She says it is definitely a challenge to help people make positive behavior changes and to assist communities in making the healthy choice the easy choice. But she says the successes that participants and community partners share about caring for their families in healthier ways always make it worth it.
Angela Hinkle Prepares Salsa Photo Source: William Reynolds
Other health and wellness Family and Consumer Sciences programming Angela has led includes: “Keeping the Pressure Down,” “Wellness Wednesdays,” “Let’s Walk Florida,” “Cook Smart Eat Smart,” “Feed Them Well,” “Smart Shopping for Families,” and the Growing Series including “Growing a Healthy Pizza,” “Growing Nachos,” “Growing an Ice Cream Sundae,” and “Growing Brunch.”
Angela was born in Trinidad in the West Indies. Her family moved to a trailer on a dirt road in Pensacola, FL when she was about five years old. She then moved around to Maryland, Oklahoma, Indiana, and North Carolina before finally circling back to Pensacola. In each place she has lived, food has always been a big passion. She loves to read about food, talk about it, make it, share it, explore the culture and history behind it, and eat it in a variety of settings. This passion makes her a great fit for the EFNEP program.
Her soul animal is a turtle, (usually moving very slowly, enjoying time in her own shell, but moving surprisingly quickly when prompted). In addition to food, Angela likes being with her dog (who is getting on in years but likes to take her for a walk every morning), a nice warm cup of tea, going to the movies, reading for pleasure, traveling and sight-seeing, and getting to spend time with her adult daughter.
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