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
th
celebrates its 35 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.