Don't Get Cut Off! Click Here to View Newsletter as Webpage

🍳🍚🍄‍🟫 Winter: Season of the Tofu Mushroom Rice Bowl? 🍄‍🟫🍚🍳

Gorgeous locally grown mushrooms from two different growers AND locally grown rice are now available on our market! Complete your rice bowl with sweet potatoes from Laughing Child Farm and tofu from Vermont Soy.

We thought the winter was our time to slow down... rest... and go inward.... well, we thought wrong!

We've been busy adding new producers and buyers to the market as well as introducing new businesses to our food hub services. We're now selling and delivering fresh food to American Flatbread (Middlebury) and the Old Brick Store (Charlotte), Monument Farms is cross docking their milk at the Hub, and we are driving freshly processed cuts from the slaughterhouse back to the farm for Grass Cattle Company.

While every day looks different, we are proud to consistently serve over sixty local producers each week. We look forward to building on this momentum in the new year with you, our local foods community!

New products on the market! The market is open every Friday at noon through Monday at 10am.

Guide Cover Art Contest

We are looking for cover art for the 2025 Local Food & Farm Guide!

Enter the cover art competition for a chance to have your work featured on the cover of the 2025 Local Food & Farm Guide:

• Submissions open until 2/14
• jpg and png formats only
• $300 stipend goes to chosen artist

We can’t wait to see your work! Email your art to info@acornvt.org

Concerned about the future?

Want to get more engaged?

Join us on Jan. 30 from 5:30-7:30pm for a Community Action Workshop hosted by NOFA-VT in collaboration with ACORN and Liberation Ecosystem (fka VT Releaf Collective).

NOFA-VT is offering Community Action Workshops to support our communities in sharing our voices. Farmers, producers, and Vermonters who see the importance of supporting local farms and our thriving local food system are welcome to participate! We’ll create a shared understanding of the pivotal importance of farm security to Vermont, learn more about an emerging campaign to pass climate resilience legislation for our farms, and take action together.

Learn more and RSVP here.

Our friends at Rural Vermont also just dropped their Activist Toolkit. Learn how to show up and make your voice heard at the Statehouse. ACORN's own Lilah Krugman is featured for her testimony last session!

Keeping our Neighbors Safe

The new administration in the United States is threatening our immigrant neighbors. We stand with our neighbors and their human rights!

Wherever you live in Vermont, we highly encourage you to sign up for Migrant Justice Action Alerts to ensure you are able to show up when needed.

Events for Farmers + Food Producers

• ACORN Food Hub Farmer Feedback Session, Thursday, Jan. 30, 4:00-5:30pm: If you are a farmer working with our food hub, we'd love to hear from you during this 1.5 hour listening session. Refreshments from the market will be served! Email market@acornvt.org to RSVP.
• Focus Group with Vermont's Climate Action Office, Wednesday, February 12, 5:30-7:00pm. Join the conversation about a tool that is being developed to measure and assess Vermont's progress on climate action. These conversations will hone in on the relationship between climate change and local food systems - whether that means growing, distributing, or accessing food. Participation is limited; each group will have 6-8 people. Dinner and a small stipend provided. RSVP here.
• Taste the Valley: Thursday, March 20, 9:30am-12:00pm. Save the date for this producer/buyer networking event. Location TBD in Middlebury or Rutland.
• Make sure your business' directory listing is up to date for the 2025 Food and Farm Guide by emailing Lilah@acornvt.org if you have not yet filled out the survey or responded to our emails/calls.
• If you have the need for a working bee (volunteer day on farm) in 2025, please email info@acornvt.org.
• Get familiar with your rights.

Throughout the Year, Buy Local

ACORN's Online Market is flush with fall root veggies, for all your toasty, roasty, soupy dreams!

• Saturdays: The Winter Farmers Market is back at the VFFC in Rutland! 
• January 30: Community Action Workshop at the ACORN Food Hub
• February 12: ACORN co-hosts focus groups with the Vermont Climate Action Office
• February 15: ACORN presents at the NOFA-VT winter gathering
• February 25-26: Vermont Cheese Council's 2025 Artisan Cheesemaker Winter Conference
• March 20: Taste the Valley for producers and buyers
• March 29: Coppice Workshop with Mark Krawczyk/ Keyline Vermont

We're so glad to be in community together.

Be well, ❄️

Lindsey, Jess, Lilah, Abby, Alicia and the ACORN Board

FINAL SHOUT OUT

We LOVED this "Well Wishes to Independent Grocers" video by Jeanie Wells.

info@acornvt.org / www.acornvt.org