ABOVE: Mid-November greens are still popping up at The Greener Garden! These and other fantastic farm products are available at our Farm Alliance stand at the Waverly Farmers Market every Saturday from 7am-noon.
Our Annual Membership Drive is On!
Every Thanksgiving season, we open our doors for urban farms to join the Farm Alliance of Baltimore. By joining the Alliance, farms receive a host of benefits including access to our Waverly market stand, technical support from our expert staff, our Double Dollars matching program, our live cooking demonstrations through our community partner, Holistic Wellness & Health, our policy advocacy work, a tool and book library, soil testing and training in composting and soil health, grantwriting support, and much more. Last year, we threw open our doors to community gardens and individuals as well, offering access to our farmer-to-farmer support network and our advocacy work and libraries for these member categories. Now, even as COVID has forced us to meet online-only since March, our Membership Committee has decided to welcome even more new members to the Farm Alliance!
We are pleased to share this link with you to share with any urban farmers in Baltimore. Farm membership dues start at $150/year, with community garden memberships at $60 per year and individual memberships on a sliding scale.
Farms must have been in operation for at least one full year and be producing at least $2,000 worth of farm products annually for sale or donation to be considered for membership in the Farm Alliance. Community Gardens may join if they are only growing for their own or their members' consumption.
Deadline to apply is December 31st, 2020. Please do not hesitate to reach out to our Deputy Director, Denzel Mitchell, at deputy.director@farmalliancebaltimore.org or Executive Director Mariya Strauss at mariya@farmalliancebaltimore.org if you have any questions. We are excited to welcome new farmers to this movement for a just local system for food, land and water! For details on the benefits and dues of membership, and how to apply, click here.
FAB's Black Farmers' Resilience Fund
We want to update you on how we are moving forward with the Black Farmers' Resilience Fund that was created in July when we had a generous anonymous donor help us raise almost $50,000 to support the Black-Led farms in Baltimore. Because we are still a predominantly white-led organization, we've convened this Council as a protected Black space for the purpose of ensuring our accountability to Black farmers and Black communities. (This accountability is part of our commitment to doing all of our work through an anti-racist lens, a commitment we made across our organization in 2017.) Additionally, none of the Advisory Council members are active members of the Farm Alliance, in order to avoid any conflicts of interest.
The Advisory Council will be speaking directly with FAB member farmers in the coming weeks to conduct an assessment of what farmers need. The Fund is still active and we are welcoming new donations. Use this link! Or, checks may be made out to Farm Alliance of Baltimore, with Black Farmers Resilience Fund in the memo line, and mailed to: Farm Alliance of Baltimore, 4709 Harford Rd. Baltimore MD 21214.
Community Cooking Demonstrations are Happening Online!
Our wonderful community partner, Chef Crystal Forman of Holistic Wellness and Health, is delivering awesome cooking demonstrations ONLINE with in-season produce from our member farms! Look for her on Mondays at 5pm on her Facebook page (and ours as well!)
Washington DC Friends, Eat Fancy & Support the Farm Alliance This Thu and Fri!
Chefs Reid Shilling and Spike Gjerde have teamed up to present a four-course tasting menu dinner (at socially distanced tables) at the Shilling Canning Co. at the Southeast DC Waterfront. This exciting, locally-sourced meal will feature some amazing dishes with produce and meats from local farms. And it is all to benefit the Farm Alliance of Baltimore! There are still a few tickets left-- book yours now!
Zooming to Farm Conferences
Our staff and members are in the thick of fall farm conference season. What is normally an enriching, bustling time of travel and preparing conference sessions and drinking coffee in hallways with friends we haven't seen in a year, has changed this year into a parade of Zoom video conferences. But there's an upside -- it means we are able to attend some of the more far-flung conferences we never get to go to! Tuskegee's farm conference and the Carolina Farm Stewards' Association are two such conferences we are attending this year for the first time. Watch for Farm Alliance presenters at Future Harvest/CASA, and we will attend the UMES Small Farms Conference and PASA. Our Executive Director, Mariya Strauss, is also attending a yearlong monthly course on Creating a Culture of Healing and Anti-Racism for nonprofit leaders.
Thank you to all of our volunteers, donors, and supporters who feed us, compost with us, garden with us, donate books and artwork, and give generously of their energy and money to support our work. We are grateful and excited to be growing in our ninth year with you!
Support Our Work
If you would like to make a one time or monthly recurring donation to the Farm Alliance of Baltimore, please use the Donate Button at this link.
If you shop at Amazon and would like to make sure a little money comes to the Farm Alliance from every purchase you make, click here.
We've moved! The Farm Alliance's new home is Function Coworking Community, 4709 Harford Road, Baltimore MD 21214. Make an appointment to come and see us!
|
