Local Food Hub Calendars are here!

Dear friends,

As you know, we embarked on a tremendous journey a year ago. The result of this journey is an extremely relevant non-profit organization which is already having a tangible impact on our small farms and our community at large.

• We have created an innovative model which works with small local farms to get their produce into the hands that need it: schools, institutions, grocers and the hungry.
• We have a licensed produce distribution warehouse.
  
• We operate an educational farm where kids, adults, and farmers can learn innovative ways of growing produce and making the most of their efforts.
  
• And we run an aggressive marketing campaign, increasing the demand for local foods and the profitability of our farmers.

In just five short months, we have surpassed each and every one of our objectives.

Did you know that if each household in Virginia spent just $10 of their weekly food budget on local food, it would generate $1.65 billion in direct economic impact for Virginia’s economy annually??

Let’s work towards that goal! This year the Local Food Hub has created a 2010 Calendar Guide to Eating, Drinking & Shopping Local. The calendar features gorgeous photography of Virginia’s farms and highlights our area’s retailers and events that sell local products and foods. And there’s a comprehensive tear-out guide for all your local shopping needs.

Local businesses from around the area sponsored all printing and design costs so that every dollar raised can go to our programming. Will you match that effort?

Please consider purchasing one (or 10!) of these calendars as gifts for friends, family, coworkers and neighbors. They are only $20 - a great price for a full-color, 14" x 11" gorgeous calendar. And, 100% of the price goes to fund our programs (which are many!).

With your help we can continue to grow by leaps and bounds.

Please support our work by purchasing your calendar here: http://tinyurl.com/LFHCalendar and telling your friends by email, Facebook or Twitter.

Calendars are also available at the following fine area retailers:
Bittersweet
Blue Ridge Country Store
Blue Ridge Eco Shop
Feast!
Greenwood Gourmet Grocery
Integral Yoga
Jefferson Vineyards
Kenny Ball Antiques
Market Street Wineshop
Milano Cafe
Mona Lisa Pasta
Nelson County Visitor's Bureau
O'Suzannah's
Quince
Rebecca's Natural Foods
Seasonal Cook
Sugar Snap Kids
Vivian's Art to Wear

Happy holidays (and thanks for reading)!

- Marisa

Virginia Farm to School THIS WEEK!

We are so excited and proud to support Virginia Farm-to-School Week by supplying 17 regional public and private schools with fresh, locally grown fruits, vegetables, meat and cheese. Participating schools include: Charlottesville City Schools (Clark, Jackson-Via, and Johnson Elementary Schools), Albemarle County Schools (Greer Elementary, Hollymead Elementary and Sutherland Middle), Greene County Schools (Greene County Primary, Nathanael Greene Elementary, Ruckersville Elementary, William Monroe Middle and William Monroe High), St. Anne’s Belfield, Montessori Community School, Charlottesville Day School and the University of Virginia.

Alan says, “We’re supplying schools with a diversity of fresh produce, including apples, kale, cauliflower, winter squash, potatoes, radishes, lettuce, eggs, cheese and ground beef, all grown and produced right here in central Virginia. By building this relationship between our local schools and farms, we are also providing fresher, healthier lunches, helping to fight childhood obesity, and creating opportunities to teach our kids about biology, geography, health and local economics.”

“In addition to helping our kids understand where their food comes from, Farm-to-School week is also an opportunity to support our local farmers, “ adds Kate. “Virginia schools spend more than $6 million annually on fresh produce – this gives us an opportunity to keep those dollars in our state, supporting our local economy. The Local Food Hub is excited to participate this year and we hope that eventually, local foods will find a permanent place on Virginia’s school menus.”

The Farm-to-School program, developed by the Virginia Department of Education and the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, is an initiative seeking to bring nutritious fresh food from local farms to schools. The program promotes a range of opportunities for schools, distributors and growers to work together to increase the volume of locally grown products served in school cafeterias.

Elementary Schools get their first deliveries of Local Food Hub Produce!

The Local Food Hub is now working with the City of Charlottesville Public Schools and Albemarle County Public Schools to get more local, fresh and nutritious fruits and vegetables into the hands of our children who need it. Three City schools and one County school received the USDA Fresh Fruits and Vegetable Snack Program Grant this year and are therefore able to provide better snack options to their students.

On Monday, August 31, the Local Food Hub made its first delivery of local fruit to Greer Elementary in Albemarle County, Virginia. This week’s delivery consisted of approximately 125 pounds of fresh peaches, 72 pints of fresh blackberries, and 72 ½ pints of fresh raspberries, in order to serve more than 530 children each of the two days they will serve the snack.

On Tuesday, September 1, the Local Food Hub made its first delivery of local fruit to three City of Charlottesville elementary schools, Clark, Johnson, and Jackson-Via. These three schools will receive approximately 375 pounds of fresh peaches and 450 pounds of ripe watermelon, which will serve over 800 children their morning snack.

All of this fruit was grown within 30 miles of the City of Charlottesville by Partner Producers of the Local Food Hub - and it reached more than 1300 children in our local schools!

The peaches and the berries come from Critzer Family Farm, in Afton, Virginia.

They were picked the morning of delivery and could not be any fresher. Critzer Family Farm has been an active farm and orchard for five generations. Offering some of the best “pick your own” strawberries in the spring and early summer, it’s apparent that having families on their farm is one of the most important factors in what they do. Whitney Critzer and his wife, Rosemary relish in the fact that what they do brings families together. Not only are their blackberries huge, juicy and bursting with flavor; their peaches delicious, tree-ripened and tasty, but they take pride in showing how working the land can help heal a soul. The Critzers, with the help of Berdy, their devoted staff member, value mentoring the kids that work on their farm.

They want to help kids grow up with a sense of integrity and an understanding of the value of hard work.

Barry Wood of Nelson County raised the watermelon on his farm, Wood Ridge. His family has farmed in Nelson County for multiple generations. Barry has been farming successfully for almost 10 years, after moving back to his family homestead. With more than 10 acres planted, Barry grows delicious no-spray corn, galia melons, cantaloupe, watermelon and will have piles of huge pumpkins come late September.

Summer's Plenty

Man oh man - are the fruits of summer here! We have so much amazing produce coming in the doors these days - it's incredible. We're working on getting this food out the door as fast as it comes in... As of today, August 3, you can find our produce at the Earlysville Market (formerly known as All Good Grocery), Feast!, Cavalier Produce, Hot Cakes Catering, and L's Burrito & Juice and many others later this week. Check out our website for the latest updates on who's got the goods. We're working on getting produce into Reid's Supermarket downtown, the Lovingston IGA Grocery, and some more retail outlets. We also make sure that a good amount of produce gets to our area's food banks & charitable organizations. Let us know where else you want to find our produce and we'll try to get it there!

Just some of the yumminess that's gracing our warehouse:
Corn, sweet white no-spray
Onions, yellow or red candy apple
White & red fingerling potatoes
Purple potatoes
Baby red & Yukon golds potatoes
Squash blossoms
Tomatoes, heirloom slicing, medium & cherry
Yellow & White Tree-Ripened Peaches
Tree-Ripened Nectarines
Blackberries - big and juicy
Raspberries - fresh & ready to eat
Pastured, free-range, non GMO fed chicken eggs - brown and delish!
Quail eggs - beautiful and delicate
Lots of herbs and other produce!

Opening Day!

After months of preparation and hard work, we have finally opened our outfitted warehouse in Ivy!


We started our day with our weekly staff meeting. Kate (director), Eric (operations & accounting consultant), Allison (community outreach), Gregg (legal counsel & public policy fellow), Alan (purchasing, sales & operations), Nathan (warehouse & driver), and myself (Marisa - farmer service & development) all sat around the table and went through our updates.



There were bottles of prosecco, cherries, scones, and orange juice.
We ceremoniously opened the prosecco, but as it was quite early in the morning, I'm not sure that anyone partook. (And if they did - perhaps they did so quietly in a corner!)

Kate handed out a gift to each of us - awesome "team" shirts - all of them with "Local Food Hub" on the front and our names on the back.

We then had a great brainstorming meeting with a couple of our local supporters and shortly thereafter, our first delivery of produce arrived.



It was beautifully apropos that our first delivery came from our first farmer to sign up as our partner. Dick Proutt, from Down Branch Farm, came to us in his pick-up and brought gorgeous squash blossoms, french zuccini, patty pan and other summer squash, and some beautiful herbs.








He and Kate chatted for a while and discussed how he got into farming and what some of his challenges are.

Dick shared with us, "Thank you all so much for what you're doing here. It's a life-saver for me. I'm a woodworker and since the economic downturn, there hasn't been much work. My farm is my only income. You make it easy."

We also received produce from Rob Brown's farm, Roundabout Farm, and Meadow Run Gardens.


All in all - a flawless soft launch to the Local Food Hub.

Many Hands Make Light Work

Many folks turned out for the first farm workday last Wednesday, July 1st. In just a matter of hours we were able to lay drip irrigation, plant 100's of seeds, mulched the field with hay, put up row covers, and put the other field under cover crop. Thanks to all of our hard workers - we did in a day what could have easily taken a week.


Also, it was Martha's birthday ~ so we felt very honored that she chose to spend her special day with us out on the farm. Happy Birthday, Martha!












Their will be plenty more opportunities to come out and enjoy the outdoors while learning a piece of farming ~ so stay tuned! We'll post here as soon as the next opportunity comes up....







Hope to see you all out on the farm really soon.

Part-time workers needed immediately!

We're looking to hire part-time farm hands immediately!

Get paid to learn how to organically farm vegetables in a supportive and educational environment. Steve and Adrianna Vargo of Quail Spring Farm are heading up our educational garden this year and we really need some help!

We are looking for some hard-working and motivated folks to help keep up with the daily tasks out at the farm for approximately 12 hours a week (4 hours on Mon, Wed, & Fri). The farm is located in Louisa County - just off of I-64 (exit 136). Pay starts at $8/hour.

Work starts this Wednesday, July 1st and continues into the fall.

Email resumes to marisa@localfoodhub.org - don't delay!