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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