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| | Dear Friends,
You know the saying, "April showers bring May flowers." Let's make a new one, "April's labors bring May's play(bors)." That was the worst ever! Its a good thing I am not a poet. The point I am trying to make is that FRESH has a lot of work to do in April to make May (and the rest of the growing season) productive and wonderful.... And we hope you'll help (and maybe you can come up with a better rhyme).
Until Then,
Let's Get Growing, The FRESH Staff |
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| | TABLE OF CONTENTS:
A Week in the Garden with Winthrop
Spring Break with the FRESH Youth Crew
A Letter from the FRESH Advisory Board
Early Plant Sale. Saturday, April 27, 10-Noon. Hope to see you! |
| | SEEDING AND GROWING WITH WINTHROP |
| In early April, FRESH New London had the opportunity to dig in the dirt with young people from Winthrop Elementary.
Over the course of four days, FRESH staff worked with the whole student body of Winthrop. We learned about soil science and seed life cycles, and did hands on work in the classroom, the greenhouse and the garden beds outside. Together, we planted thousands of seeds.
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| | It was a great way to get ready for the spring growing season.
Sean and Alicia learned alot, not the least of which was how hard teachers work! And, shout out to Food Corp member Brandee Kitzmiller, who really facilitated us being there. Thank you so much! |
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| | | | If your idea of spring break is underage drinking and skimpy swimsuits, stay far away from the hard working young people in our FRESH Crew.
The week started with thunder and lightening and a driving rainstorm, so the Crew got to know one another inside the Ceramics Room. By 10am they were filling seed trays and sharing their food stories.
We have 12 young people interning with FRESH for Spring Break 2019. Helping out Julie and the rest of the FRESH staff are 5 junior staff people (who you met last issue of our newsletter).
We'll be reporting more on learning with these crop of young leaders in our next issue of the Newsletter, but we thought you'd like to see their smiling faces (above) And a small bit of their hard work (below). |
| | | Board Update: Why does FRESH need your support?
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| From, Liz Spurr, FRESH Advisory Board
Our board is made up of six dedicated members. Our numbers are slight (we hope to grow in number soon enough) but for now we are growing our skills in order to support FRESH through group work. We were recently awarded a board development grant through the community foundation to strengthen our advising, governance and fundraising muscles. We’ll be meeting with a consultant over the next few months to focus our roles in supporting FRESH.
So, what does this look like?
We are working to make sure that the organization supports those who need food justice in our local communities. We are practicing keeping our wide eyes open for opportunities. We are learning how to ask the right questions while keeping ourselves accountable and the communication between board and staff open and productive. Also, fundraising.
FRESH New London is a very very very busy organization that is currently functioning the best they can with minimal staff hours. The beneficial and healing work of FRESH is supported primarily through grant funding, donations and other collaborations. FRESH works to achieve several seasons of youth programs while maintaining an urban farm with a Mission CSA, a youth employment program, community gardens, community education, coordinating the Five Year Urban Ag plan, while continuing to support existing growing spaces and starting up new locations to grow… all while navigating the uncertainty of the status of our urban farm location and the vast possibilities and expenses that moving could entail.
Here’s the thing… grants don’t pay the salaries of our administrative staff. This money is harder to find and frankly, harder to write grants for. We rely on donations and fundraising to pay our administrators. The administrative staff does the work of finding grant money for our programming, writing the grants, and doing the follow up work. They are the implementers, the visioneers, the communicators, the networkers, the programmers, responsible and fully accountable to the staff and board. They are the PLANNERS gosh darn it, and who wants to do that? Well… you’d have to PAY them to do it. They need to feel well supported.
There are many ways that we are brainstorming on how to bring in money so we can pay our staff so they can continue to employ, dream and grow. For example we could have an amazing tag sale, a special food event, promote crowd funding, get a real endowment together... How do we do that? Well, we must at least dream big. To start, we will encourage you to go to the donate page on our website. Also we are fundraising at the FRESH plant sales with a prize drawing – tried and true.
When you see us out there at our table at the plant sales, come over and say hello.
Check out the amazing prizes from local businesses and artisans.
Buy a ticket – or five.
We will personally thank you for your continuing support of FRESH!!!
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WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT
Interested in supporting FRESH with a tax-deductible donation?
Of course you are! Follow this link: http://www.freshnewlondon.org/support-us |
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