Building Resilience in Appalachia

The growing season is in full swing and we’re busy back in the gardens with weekly work parties, and at the Athens Farmers Market and Chesterhill Produce Auction, at each event twice weekly.  Because people are growing and donating more food, and we’re purchasing more food, we have more to distribute! We’re back to distributing locally grown/produced food twice each week, and we’ve also been able to do some special distributions of greens to partner organizations that provide free meals.  All of this programming happens thanks to your support! When we ensure that everyone in the community has access to locally grown/produced food, whether through immediate access to food or through garden access and education, we’re not only supporting individuals facing food insecurity, but also working for transformative change through promoting continued interest in our local food system.  

Some big events have happened since kicking off this campaign:

• We hosted our seed and plant-start giveaways, distributing over 4,000 plants and reaching hundreds of families throughout the region.
• We collaborated with Athens Public Libraries to host bucket gardening workshops, where participants learned how to garden even without garden space.  Attendance was great!
• We helped sponsor the Nelsonville Community Dinner, sharing an awesome meal featuring locally-grown food with over 150 people.  It was an awesome event, and inspiring to see several organizations work together to make it happen.

Thank you again for your support!  We only create transformative change with engagement from the entire community, and we know our community is both invested and expansive.

With much gratitude,

The CFI team