🫶 🧑🏽‍🌾 Sending Gratitude to the Farmers and Farmworkers! 👩🏻‍🌾 🫶

As the 2023 growing season begins to wrap up, we want to send a big thank you to all the growers and producers who persevered through the 3 Fs: frost, flood and fire. A super late frost, an inundation of rain and floods, and air quality degraded by wildfire smoke made the already challenging task of growing food in Vermont even more difficult!

We are super thankful to all the folks who steward our working lands, including farmworkers, farmers, food producers, and their supporting networks of friends, family and neighbors who have lent a helping hand this year.

And we thank everyone who prioritizes buying locally! A strong local foodshed requires a dedicated community of folks who take that extra step to find local foods for their pantries and kitchens.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. 💚

The ACORN Online Market is chock full of

🍠🥔🥬 LOCAL FOOD TO FALL FOR 🥬🥔🍠

Winter Squashes - Sweet Potatoes- Hardy Greens - Roots

and so much more!

Place your order weekly by Monday at 10am.

A Big Thanks to our Featured Buyers of the Month: Feeding Chittenden + The Abbey Group!

We're so excited to be sending loads of local food to more schools and a local online food pantry!

Save the date! Upcoming ACORN Events

This is the second part of our Farmer Climate Network launch. Please join us to learn more about stewarding land for clean water on Thursday, November 9 from 6-8pm at Middlebury College. We are co-hosting this event with the Middlebury Natural Foods Co-op. The event is free and open to the public! RSVP here.

Join us to celebrate ONE YEAR of the ACORN Food Hub, enjoy a delicious light dinner and learn about the emerging Farmer Climate Network.

Featuring a panel discussion on Farming on the Forefront of Climate Change with farmers and farmworkers from across Addison County including:

• Matt Bryan/Liv Glascoe (Lower Notch Berry Farm)
• Ollie Cultrara (farmworker on multiple farms)
• Silas Doyle-Burr (Last Resort Farm)
• Andrés Oyaga (former farmworker, member of an emerging Agroecology School)
• AnnaJo Smith (Smith Family Farm)

Purchase your ticket early as space is limited! Each ticket incudes entry for the evening and a light dinner provided by Minifactory with a cash bar and dessert for purchase.

Resources for Food Producers

• Our walk-in freezer is up and running! If you've got extra produce, meat or other products you need to freeze for the short or long term, email Lilah@acornvt.org 
• ClimateReadyVT is a FREE program designed to help small businesses in Vermont adapt to our changing climate and prepare for the next climate-related business disruption.
• The Climate Catalyst Innovation Fund is Open for Applications
• Farms on which excess levels of PFAS are found in their fields or products face a sudden end to their business ventures with generations of work at risk. In an effort to build support for the PFAS Relief for Farmers Act (S.747) in the 2023 farm bill, the Protect Our Soils Coalition is gathering signatures from across Vermont to endorse this national bill. Sign-On letter here. Full VTDigger commentary here
• Check out this webinar explaining the report New England Feeding New England: A Regional Approach to Food System Resilience 
• The ACORN team attended Shelburne Farms' ABCs of Farm-Based Education. If you'd like ACORN to co-host or plan an event on your farm, email us!

Nightmare on Exchange Street!

ACORN hosted a Halloween-themed launch of our new Farmer Climate Network! Best dressed went to the Foxglove Farm family of acorns! How cute are they!?

Complete with a taco bar, wellness bar, Fiddlehead on tap, masseuse and DJ, we welcomed growers, and their friends and family members, to kick back at the ACORN Food Hub to enjoy a few hours of relaxation time.

We also gathered feedback for winter and spring working bees. These half and full day projects will prove that old adage that many hands make light work! Thanks to funding from the Vermont Council on Rural Development for the seed money to start the Network and working bees.

• November 3: Vermont Specific Agroforestry Learning Session (online)
• November 5: Turkey Slaughter & Processing Workshop (Northfield)
• November 9: Healing our Watershed Homes (Middlebury)
• November 16-17: 13th Annual Farm to Plate Gathering (Killington)
• November 28: ACORN's Annual Meeting register early, space is limited (Bristol)
• November 30: Land Gifts: The Legacy and Logistics (online)

Thank you for being a part of our community. ✨

Wishing you a month of clear night skies for stargazing, bonfires and hot apple cider! ✨🔥

Cheers,

Lindsey, Jess, Lilah and the ACORN Board