It’s been a tough year. . . Okay, it’s been a tough couple of years for our communities. That’s why I am so excited to share some positive news with you. The choices you make about how to feed your family matter, and your efforts do not go unnoticed. Because of you, Wild Harmony Farm gets to fight food insecurity in our local communities.
The desire to answer the call to action our nation was (is) crying out for was loud and clear. I sat down with my dearest friends and licensed social worker and one of our passionate farm apprentices to start brainstorming. We came up with an idea we called “pathway to food equity”. It turns out we were not alone in our desire to do more as a small-scale food producer. When we approached our fellow WhatsGood vendors about our program, over 20 farmers, producers and artisans jumped on board.
Starting in the Summer of 2020, on the first Friday of every month, the group has given and continues to give a percentage of our WhatsGood sales to the George Wiley Center (and WhatsGood matches our donations!) so that our neighbors and friends can access local food to feed their families.
We know that money is not the only barrier to people being able to eat food from local farms; lack of transportation to the farm, difficulty accessing the internet to find their local farms, and lack of a network with knowledge about where to buy healthy food can be obstacles as well. That’s why the George Wiley Center is a perfect partner for us. They are helping people in all aspects of their lives. As Executive Director Camilo Viveiros puts it,
“Our power has always been based on our ability to bring people together to make an impact around issues that impact BIPOC and low-income communities. During the pandemic with record unemployment, the issues that we have worked on such as food insecurity, unemployment benefits, and economic justice have become felt more widely. And with the growth of the movement for Black Lives our work around racial justice has become more widely recognized, the challenge is always turning experience with injustice and sentiment around a social issue, into action.”
On Saturday, September 18, we finally got to meet the community members and staff from the George Wiley Center when they visited Wild Harmony Farm. It was just really, really cool to get to do a tour with folks who have been eating our products for over a year now!
Since it’s beginning to feel like Fall, we gave everyone a hayride-style tour of the farm. We started by showing our guests our pig areas and teaching them about our philosophy of regenerative practices.
Next, we visited the turkeys. I loved hearing people say things like, “Oh yeah, we had your turkey last year for Thanksgiving!”
Another highlight was that Milo made some new friends. It was so sweet how attentive the other little kids were with him. As a family farm, ensuring that other families in our communities eat well is very important to us.
Our final stop was our garden, where we harvested a bunch of collard greens and kale for dinner!
Gathering with our community in this way was so special. It really felt like a community event of bringing people together to get to see where their own food comes from. I want to THANK YOU for supporting our communities and making connections like this possible.
Lastly, we invite you to keep buying from us on WhatsGood on the first Friday of each month, when we donate a percentage of our sales to George Wiley Center and/or donate to the George Wiley Center any time HERE.